By Luke Goodsell
Samuel L Jackson plays narrator as well as uncle Doaker Charles. (Supplied: Netflix)
After the success of 2016's Fences and 2020's electrifying Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Denzel Washington's latest adaptation of playwright August Wilson is a distinctly family affair, with the star's youngest son, Malcolm Washington, taking on directing duties, and his eldest, actor John David Washington (Tenet; BlacKkKlansman leading the cast. (Washington's wife, Pauletta, and daughter, Olivia, also make small on-screen appearances.)
And with its story of siblings squabbling over a potent family legacy, you might argue that The Piano Lesson is a perfect fit for everyone involved.
First performed in 1987, Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama was the fifth instalment in his widely acclaimed 'Pittsburgh Cycle': a series of 10 plays that reckoned with strands of Black American history throughout the 20th century, and which the elder Washington has dedicated himself to bringing to the screen.
As in the play, the bulk of the movie's action takes place in 1936, when Mississippi sharecropper Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his buddy Lymon (Ray Fisher) arrive at the Pittsburgh home shared by his older sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler, Till) and their uncle, Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson, who played Washington's role in the original 1987 theatre production; they both starred in the play's 2022 Broadway revival).
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First published at ABC News, November 12, 2024
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