Word: doaker
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...piano in Doaker Charles' living room is a family heirloom, and like most heirlooms it is prized more than used, its value measured less in money than in memories. For this piano, the Charles family was torn asunder in slavery times: to acquire it, the white man who owned them traded away Doaker's grandmother and father, then a nine-year-old. On this piano, Doaker's grieving grandfather, the plantation carpenter, carved portrait sculptures in African style of the wife and son he had lost. To Doaker's hothead older brother, born under the second slavery of Jim Crow...
...sits admired but mostly untouched in Doaker's house in Pittsburgh, and it threatens to tear the family apart again. Boy Willie Charles, son of the man who stole the piano, wants to sell it and use the proceeds to buy and farm the very land where his ancestors were slaves. Boy Willie's sister Berniece denounces as sacrilege the idea of selling away a legacy her father died to obtain...
...play is set in post-Depression Pittsburgh. When gentle Doaker Charles's (Carl Gordon) nephew Boy Willie (Charles S. Dutton) comes to visit, the youngster wreaks havoc on the calm home Doaker shares with his widowed niece Berneice (Starletta Dupois) and Berneice's daughter Maretha (Jaye Skinner). Dupois plays Berneice with unswerving, impressive ferocity despite the fact that Wilson tends to give all of the best moments to Boy Willie...
DUTTON'S ENTRANCE at the beginning of Act 1 is vigorous and spectacular, and his energy never flags. Boy Willie and Berneice soon embark on a bitter struggle over a family heirloom, an ornately carved piano that dominates the sitting room of Doaker's simple house. The piano was carved by their great-grandfather and was traded for their great-grandmother during slavery days...
Dutton is a sharp contrast not only to Berneice's steadiness but also to the quietness of Carl Gordon's performance as Doaker. The character that makes the best foil for Boy Wille's out-there exuberance is his handsome friend Lymon, played with a funny mix of innocence and debonair grace by Rocky Carroll...
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