'The Piano Lesson' review: August Wilson's masterful drama

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The August Wilson play "The Piano Lesson" gets adapted to the screen for Netflix by Malcolm Washington (son of Denzel), who makes his directorial debut. 

The play, which was also recently revived on Broadway with many of the same actors, is part of Wilson's "Pittsburgh Cycle." The 10-play cycle also includes "Fences" and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," both of which became movies in recent years.

Set in Pittsburgh in 1936, "The Piano Lesson" concerns the conflict that erupts between a brother and a sister over the future of an heirloom piano. The stars are Danielle Deadwyler ("Till") as Berniece Charles and John David Washington as her brother Boy Willie (he's also Malcolm's real-life brother). Berniece wants to keep the piano in her uncle's Pittsburgh home; Boy Willie wants to sell it to buy the land upon which their ancestors were enslaved.

The ensemble is rounded out by Samuel L. Jackson as Doaker, their uncle; Corey Hawkins as preacher and family friend Avery Brown; Ray Fisher as Boy Willie's friend Lymon, and more.

MY SAY This is a story told largely inside the Charles home, engaging with the ghosts of the past and the pain of repressed memories as exemplified by the piano. It is heavy with metaphor and symbolism, exploring the ways in which the objects passed down through generations carry with them the burdens of history.

That makes for a rather imposing project for a first-time filmmaker, given the dual task of translating material crafted for the stage to the screen and the added challenge of having to infuse cinematic life and feeling into a story that's very much about what happens below the dialogue-filled surface.

Malcolm Washington, who also co-wrote the adaptation with Virgil Williams, finds his way into the story with considerable success in both areas.

First, he allows for his actors to bring the weight of all that's unspoken to their performances, even amid the explosive verbal sparring. There's so much revealed about the enormity of this moment in the quiet stretches, the perfectly calibrated reaction shots and the deep-rooted anguish that informs it all.

Rather than falling into a stage-bound trap, Washington finds a visual style that translates the material to the screen. The camera becomes a ghostly presence of its own in this home, moving through its corridors as if it's been there forever, suggesting that so much has been hidden not only within the piano itself but in the rooms that surround it.

The Charles family has its own particular connection to this piano, but the power of the story ultimately derives from its universality. Every family has their own version of this heirloom and all that it represents: the questions about what a familial legacy means, how much value we're to place on our shared history, and where the lessons of the past factor into our everyday lives.

BOTTOM LINE A first-rate adaptation.