Live Theatre Afficionados Pls?
I recently saw a production of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson.” I’ve always loved this play, but I’d never seen it performed. The ensemble acting (the scene where the men sing together, for example) and the stage pyrotechnics (The haunting scene was achieved by playing a recording of slightly labored breathing at top volume causing the sensation of a mild tremor under the auditorium!) It all worked flawlessly. I’ve been going to theatre since I was a child (1950′s), but this performance will stand out.
My question is (Finally):
Anyone else have strong feelings about this play? Or have you ever seen a play you’d only read and loved before? How did the performance live up to your feelings about the script? Obviously this experience moved me enough to ask; hope some one will respond.
I really love August Wilson’s work, and I’ve read “The Piano Lesson” but I’ve never seen it, and your description of the production you saw sounds great. I’m so glad you had such a powerful experience in the theater. I believe that live theater has the power to uplift and to challenge us, and I always love to hear other people’s stories of this.
I will always remember the first time I saw Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” I studied the script for a class in high school, and I really loved it because it was so funny and joyful, it its own absurdist way. I finally saw a production of it five years after that, and found myself weeping in the middle of the audience. There was plenty of joy in the production and plenty of times I laughed, but my life circumstances had changed, and I was more keenly aware of the profound lonliness of the world of the play (and of my own, of course.) So this play I loved on the page for its humor and life, I ended up loving on stage because of its profound sadness.
Thanks for sharing your story. I’m now determined to seek out a production of “The Piano Lesson.”