THE PIANO LESSON
By August Wilson
August Wilson Biography
-Career only lasted 20 years
-October 11, 1984 – Ma Rainey’s Black
Bottom premiere at Broadway’s Court
Theater
-Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990)
won the Pulitzer Prize; Fences also won the
Tony Award for Best Play
-7 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards
for best American play. Since that award
was inaugurated in 1936, only Tennessee
Williams, who won it four times, has won it
more than twice.
August Wilson Biography Cont’d
-Born Frederick August Kittel in 1945 —
fourth of six children to a white father and a
black mother—in Pittsburgh’s Hill District
(sometimes called “a slum” but considered by
many to be the cultural center of AfricanAmerican life in Pittsburgh).
-Father absent through Wilson’s life
“The cultural environment of my life, the
forces that have shaped me, the nurturing, the
learning, have all been black ideas about the
world that I learned from my mother.”
- Daisy Wilson Kittel (mother) strong powerful
woman who believed in education.
- Moved out of Hill District to Hazlewood
District (predominantly white working-class)
August Wilson Biography Cont’d
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High-school dropout (driven out by racism), but studied so much
at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (from age 12) that it
bestowed on him its only (to date) honorary degree
1968: co-founded now-defunct Black Horizon Theater in Hill District
Three wives:
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Constanza Romero (1994-2005)
Judy Oliver (1981-1990)
Brenda Burton (1969-1972)
Diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2005;
died October 2, 2005 (not long after the world premiere
run—April/May 2005—of Wilson’s last play Radio Golf,
which completed the “Century Cycle”)
The Pittsburgh Cycle (a.k.a. “Century Cycle”)
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1900s: Gem of the Ocean (2004) [9]
1910s: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988) [3]
1920s: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984) [1]
1930s: The Piano Lesson (1990) [4]
1940s: Seven Guitars (1996) [6]
1950s: Fences (1987) [2]
1960s: Two Trains Running (1992) [5]
1970s: Jitney (2000) [7]
1980s: King Hedley II (2001) [8]
1990s: Radio Golf (2005) [10]
Gem of the Ocean – 1900s
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone – 1910s
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – 1920s
The Piano Lesson – 1930s
Seven Guitars – 1940s
Fences – 1950s
Two Trains Running – 1960s
Jitney – 1970s
King Hedley II – 1980s
Radio Golf – 1990s
August Wilson Themes
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“to make African Americans aware and proud of
their history and heritage”
 Slavery
/ Emancipation Proclamation
 Novelist/playwright Zora Neale Hurston / segregation
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Conflict between assimilation and pride in one’s
uniqueness, one’s heritage
August Wilson Influences
-Artist: Romare Bearden
-Title: The Piano Lesson (1983)
-Most believe the central subject of this
composition to be jazz pianist Mary Lou
Williams, who spent her childhood years in
Pittsburgh.
-Though a New Yorker for most of his life,
young Romaire Bearden traveled
frequently to Pittsburgh.
-About Bearden, Wilson said, "When I saw
his work, it was the first time that I had
seen black life presented in all its richness,
and I said, 'I want to do that—I want my
plays to be the equal of his canvases.'"
August Wilson Influences: The Blues and Jazz
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Wilson on music: "I have always consciously been chasing the
musicians. It's like our culture is in the music. And the writers are
way behind the musicians I see. So I'm trying to close the gap.“
Most of Wilson's plays inspired by images (paintings, photos),
snippets of conversation, or lyrics from blues songs
Example: hearing recording of blues singer Bessie Smith
(protégé of blues singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey) inspired first
play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Continuity of African-American music/oral tradition from
spirituals to blues to jazz to contemporary R&B, hip-hop, etc. is
also part of the texture of the “Century Cycle”
The Piano Lesson Themes
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The importance of the past to the present
 Oral
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history
The desire to conform
The problem of identity and the importance of the
past to identity
Celebrating African American culture
Monologues as Revelations of Character & Theme
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Each pair/trio will analyze a
monologue:
 Summarize the TEXT of the
monologue
 What is the SUBtext of the
monologue?
 Include analysis of symbolism
where appropriate.
 What does the monologue reveal
about character & how?
 Specifically, what does the
monologue show of the
character’s attitude toward
past, present, and future?
Group 1: Boy Willie (pg. 10-11)
Group 2: Doaker (pg. 18-19)
Group 3: Avery (pg. 24-25)
Group 4: Wining Boy (pg. 41)
Group 5: Doaker (pg. 42-46)
Group 6: Boy Willie (pg. 51)
Group 7: Berniece (pg. 52)
Group 8: Wining Boy (pg. 63-64)
Group 9: Lymon (pg. 78)
Group 10: Boy Willie (pg. 88-94)