August Wilson's Pulitzer-winning play gets the prestige awards-season movie treatment — and gives Danielle Deadwyler one hell of a spotlight.
The musical instrument sitting over in the corner, idle but not gathering dust, at the center of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning playis more than just a piano. It’s a family heirloom, passed down several generations and proof of how their lineage endured hardship and tragedy. It’s a piece of art, carved with the faces of those who came before, all rendered with an expertise that would make Michelangelo envious.
Let’s take it from the top: The year is 1936. Willie Boy and his friend, Lymon , have traveled from Mississippi to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to sell a truckload of watermelons they’ve harvested. The real reason they’ve made the 1800 mile journey, however, is that piano. Between selling the produce and selling the instrument, Willie Boy will have enough cash to finally purchase the land their family has sharecropped down south for ages.
She, along with the fact that this play remains a Great American Work of Art no matter the film presentation’s hiccups and pitfalls, is the reason to seek this dizzying drama out. Like the previous two entries in Denzel’s passion project, this fable of heirlooms, grudges and the need for closure fills in a gap in our nation’s collective narrative.
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