I have never done a review this way. In a short amount of time I have watched three versions of The Piano Lesson. I saw the live show first. Then I attempted to watch the 2024 film. Then I watched the 1995 film before trying once again to watch the new one. Full disclosure: I am missing half an hour of it and will likely never watch it. I am going to take each character and actor/actress from these different versions and talk about how I received them and what I liked or didn't.
“Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which is decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor. The play focuses on the arguments between a brother and a sister who have different ideas on what to do with the piano. The brother, Boy Willie, is a sharecropper who wants to sell the piano to buy the land (Sutter's land) where his ancestors toiled as slaves. The sister, Berniece, remains emphatic about keeping the piano, which shows the carved faces of their great-grandfather's wife and son during the days of their enslavement.”
