The Piano Lesson (2024) August Wilson, Denzel Washington, Malcolm Washington, & John David Washington

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh lord, oh lord gay, oh, oh lord bird, oh
lord gays Wow go he and married.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Don't jump wait on me, Oh go in, Mary, don't
jump way on me? Where might not want you when
I go free hock, might not want you when I

(00:41):
go freewhere you know, oh lord gay, oh lord bird,
oh lord gay.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm a pireland.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Down Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Don't know the difference when sambo down. Don't know a
friend one.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Hello, and welcome to Book versus Movie. This is a
podcast we read books that have been adapted into movies
and then we try to decide which we like better,
the book or the movie. I am Margot p ofcoloniabook
dot com and this is my good friend and co
host Margo D of Brooklyn Fitchick. Hi have you won?
It is Black History Month and we are doing a
very special play to movie today in theater. The play

(01:47):
is called the Book, so it still works. Look, we
try to give you a brand new episode every single week,
and that means we're not always going to read you know,
lemm is a rob. We just can't. So we will
consider any film that has been adapted from any kind

(02:08):
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(02:30):
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(04:21):
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Speaker 2 (04:22):
Go for it.

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And just some upcoming ones that we have coming up.
We have Hustlers Believe or not that's based on a
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Speaker 3 (04:35):
All those are.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
Going up on the wall, and we've have, just like
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Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, that's another thing that we'll consider. Because we've been
out I say, we've been at this a super long time.
A lot of our older episodes you're not going to
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(05:08):
see in our back catalog on Thaddeus's list or something
he's like, who would you guys look at that again,
we'll consider looking at it again. Absolutely absolutely. Now today
this is our third time talking I believe about August Wilson.
Very excited. We're just going to hit the broad strokes.

(05:29):
He's such an important American playwright, and you and I
both lived in New York City kind of in the
heyday of his you know, his theater premiers, of his
Pittsburgh what was Usually people talk about the Pittsburgh Cycle,
but there's other stuff as well. So let's talk about
our esteemed playwright, mister August Wilson.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
Frederick August Kittle Junior was born April twenty seventh, nineteen
forty five. He's from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was Jerman,
his mother was African American. His father kind of left
the picture when he was young. He was raised by
his mother and he began with writing poetry. He fancied

(06:11):
himself a poet at first, and then he switched to playwriting.
He did that in the Midwest, and then he settled
in New York for a while writing and all these
plays that Margot talks about, there's a group of ten
of them that are part of his Pittsburgh. They call
it the Bicycle, the Pittsburgh Cycle. Some people call it
the Century cycle. But it's a group of ten plays

(06:32):
that talks about African American the community in the twentieth century,
using different decades. For the one he passed away in
two thousand and five at the age of sixty, and
he's one of the most lauded playwrights of the twentieth century.
And as Margo said, you know, we heard about all
these plays opening up on Broadway when we both lived
in New York. I still live here. But there's an

(06:54):
interesting article that I got from the Smithsonian, and he
was inspired by this particular play by Romari Bearden is
the author Romare Romare. Sorry, I was getting the pronunciation
from the web, so it's Romare Bearden and it's he.
It was a photo. It was an excuse me, a lithograph.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Maybe I have it wrong. No, no, no, I mean
it's how I heard it. Oh, I always learned it.
I always learned it Romare Bearded.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
Okay, it's a borrow m a R. Maybe we said
it wrong, yeah, exactly. The AI might have just said
it incorrectly. But it's called the Piano Lesson Homage to
Mary lou in nineteen eighty three, and it's this gorgeous lithograph,
colorful painting, and that's the inspiration he chose. And it
was based on a jazz singer who in he was

(07:40):
a fan of and I can bring up her name.
It was Mary Lou Williams. And so this particular play
is set in the nineteen thirties in Pittsburgh, and it's, uh,
what do we say about it, Margot, I mean the
piano lesson?

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Okay, So I was just looking at the painting. I means,
I said, the lithograph of the piano list. And I'm
trying to see person's Facebook groups in this article. Oh good, Yeah,
it's in the Herald A and an are sort of
gente collection of contemporary African American art. I'm not sure

(08:21):
where that is, but it must be in Pittsburgh. It's
a it's such a beautiful work of art. And the
cover I have the script here. The cover doesn't have
it on it. I don't know why, but I remember
it being on the poster. It might be a right
on Broadway. Perhaps This is an absolutely gorgeous play and

(08:44):
one of the things that struck me. I'd never read
it before. I remember the Hallmark movie, which we'll talk
about a little bit later on. We're going to be
talking about the newest version, the newest film adaptation. But
having read Fences, which we I mean, he's just he's
such a good writer. We loved Fences and we loved Maradi,

(09:08):
and both of those plays had well. Fences was more
of a family drama. But but this one, compared to
those two, is a very very simple plot, very simple storyline,
very elegant, and yet there are all of these layers

(09:31):
of family and culture and city and country. And it's
very heady time in American culture, especially for Black Americans.
We have the is it the Great Migration where everybody's
moving north? And so I'm going to just read the

(09:52):
setting of the play from the script, and it says
here the action of the play takes place in the
kitchen and parlor of the house where sorry Doaker Charles
lives with his niece Bernice and her eleven year old daughter, Maritha.
The house is sparsely furnished, and although there is evidence

(10:12):
of a woman's touch, there is a lack of warmth
and vigor. Bernice and Maritha occupy the rooms. The room's upstairs,
and Doaker's room is prominent and opens onto the kitchen.
In other words, Doker's room is visible on the stage.
On the dominating the parlor is an old upright piano
on the legs of the piano, carved in the manner

(10:34):
of African sculpture, are mask like figures, resembling totems. The
carvings are rendered with a grace and power of invention
that lifts them out of the realm of craftsmanship and
into the realm of art. At left is a staircase
leading to the upstairs, so all of the action takes
place on the first floor of this house, very much

(10:56):
like in Fences and Oh, let's talk about our cast.
The original premiere production of this was in nineteen eighty
seven at Yale rep And as Joker, we had Carl
Gordon as boy Willie. Who's the male lead. We have
Samuel L. Jackson. Heard of him? Your uncle Sam? Oh

(11:19):
my god. I'm still watching it every day too. Every
time I start to flag a little, a little in
my spirit, I pull that up and there he is,
your uncle Sam. Rocky Carol plays Lineman, star Letta Dupois
plays Bernice. Two girls play Maritha Shane Johnson and Yolanda Powell.

(11:42):
Tommy Hollis plays Avery, Lou Meyers plays Whining Boy, and
Sharon Washington plays Grace. Now when it goes to Broadway
nineteen ninety in nineteen ninety. We've got Carl Gordon is Dooker,
Charles A. Stutton. This is the like really acclaimed production.
Charles Stutton is he the one from rock Yes as

(12:04):
Boy Willie Rocky, Carol as Lyman. Bernice was played by
s A. Paitha Murkerson Maretha's April Foster. Tommy Hollis is
back as Whining Boy. He played Avery in the original production,
but he's I'm sorry, no, he's playing Avery in both.
Lou Myers is also back as whining Boy, and Grace

(12:26):
is played by Lisa Gay Hamilton. And when we had
the Broadway revival which was twenty twenty two ago, twenty
twenty two, we have do you have that cast? Yes?

Speaker 5 (12:41):
I do, so it's it's Dooker Charles as Samuel L.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Jackson.

Speaker 5 (12:44):
So now he's playing the oldest character in the play
Boy Willie John David Washington. He's Denzil's son, and that's reductive.
He's a great actor on his own. He doesn't need.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Seriously, Yeah, but everybody needs to just calm down about that. Yes,
if he was especially yeah, if he was not delivering,
there's no way, there's no way they would let him
anywhere near a stage or a camera. So and he's
also relax. He's amazing.

Speaker 5 (13:10):
We talked about and when we talked about Black Clansman,
I mean, he's a very very talented actor. And his
brother is directing the movie that we're watching. We'll talk
about that in a second. It's so it's Ray Fisher
as Lyneman, and it's Courtney b Vance in the nineteen
ninety five movie. Bernice is Danielle Brooks, Maratha is Nadia

(13:32):
Daniel or Jumy Elizabeth Swan. Maybe they took turns. Trey
Byers is Avery, Michael Potts once again is Winning Boy
and Whining Boy, and then April Mathis is Grace. So
that's the first Broadway revival. You know, this play won
the Pulitzer Prize, it was nominated for several awards Drama
Critics and all all that stuff, and it's always done

(13:55):
very well.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
And it's a very simple story.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
As Margo said, but you know, we don't hear stories
about African American families. You're not going to get it
from a white writer. It's just you know, you're going
to write from what you know and what you can experience.
And so it's incredible how he's able to go back
several generations in the past and really bring people alive

(14:19):
and they feel present and current.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
It reminded me a little bit of I love Finding
your Roots and who do you think you are? I'm
like obsessed with those shows and on finding your Roots?
Especially which is I think is the American one? I
always get them confused, which one is which I think
finding your roots is? This one? On finding your roots,

(14:44):
they talk a lot about how it's because of the
institution of slavery, it's very difficult to trace Black Americans
back very many generations because the system was designed to break,
you know, break those lineages and and disempower families and

(15:07):
black uh, black Americans. And this play is so wonderful
because it does. It stretches it, it keeps, it stretches
back a little bit, and then it goes farther and
farther back as the play goes on. It's very again,
it's very simply, it's it's it's a The plot is

(15:31):
very simple. Here's the plot. A woman lives in Pittsburgh
with her A widow lives in Pittsburgh with her daughter
and her uncle. They're in her uncle's house, and one
day her brother and a friend show up from down
south where they're all from. The brother wants to buy
the land of the family that used to own their family,

(15:56):
and in order to buy that land, he needs to
sell the piano that both he and his sister have.
It's like their one legacy that they have from their family,
the thing that they actually own that they can sell,
and he wants to sell it to buy this land.
She doesn't want to sell it, and they fight about
it for one and a half acts, and eventually he

(16:21):
spoiler alert, eventually he acquiesces and they don't sell the piano.

Speaker 5 (16:25):
The end.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
That's the story, but it's so beautiful, just the different
relationships of the characters to each other, the way the
history unfolds, and it unfolds in a very natural way

(16:46):
like it went unfold as you're talking with the different
generations of a family. And then there's also they're not
hitting you over the head with it too much, but
there's also a slight supernatural element and spiritual element to
the story as well that just the thing just sparkles.

(17:08):
I mean, you I sat down with this script and
I just read it all in one sitting, which is
normal for a play, but I blazed to do this thing.
I could not put it down. I was just dying
to know what's going to happen next, and what's going
to happen next. And you heard how simple the story is.
It's just the way that they're talking to each other
and relating to each other, and the way that their

(17:29):
family history and the different ways that the different characters
hold and preserve that family history in addition to the
physical manifestation of it that they are fortunate to have.
It's just so fascinating, and every single character has a
has a way, a different way that they that they

(17:52):
carry this story and and are living the next chapter
of it. I just blown away by the script and
I couldn't wait to see the movie. But let's just
talk a little bit about how this action unfolds, because
this play is very different from the movie, and that again,
the play all takes place in this one setting. In
the movie, we have different locations.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
Yeah, well, so they show up and we should say, like,
the character of Liman is really interesting, and he's played
very differently between the nineteen ninety five version, which is
Courtney b Vance that I saw and I didn't see it.
Unfortunately I haven't seen it on Broadway. I haven't seen
a filmed presentation of that. And then what Ray Fisher
is doing in this movie. But Lyman's an interesting character

(18:35):
because and we're introduced through the family through Liman, because
he doesn't know the story, so they tell him all
the stories. And one thing that's brought up over and
over is these visions that people have either of the
man Sutton, who was the man that basically broke the
family apart in order to get this piano. He took
half the family away in order to give his wife

(18:56):
this piano, and then they carved the the piano was
thought to be haunted.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
So yeah, so the so that, and it's pretty far
into the play. But by the time we get the
story of the piano, we know something's up with the piano.
First of all, it does not look like an ordinary piano.
I'm dying to know what the Broadway or even in
the original one must just look like.

Speaker 5 (19:19):
I'll put it in the show notes because there's a
couple of them. The New York Times did a story
in December. It was all the different pianos and where
they are now.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
So let me say on the cover. I keep hitting
my microphone. I'm so sorry. On the cover of the
script is a little blurb from the original New York
Times review, and I think this says it really super well.
It says, part stopping the play's real music is in
the language mister Wilson's most virtuosic writing to date, and

(19:52):
I couldn't agree more because it is. It's called The
Piano Lesson, and in many ways, the central character of
the play is this piano and the whole. There's never
like it's not a traditional piano lesson in terms of
anybody teaching anybody to play the piano. Nobody the whole.

(20:14):
So much of the action and dialogue is about how
Bernice does not touch this piano, she does not play it,
and yet she will not sell it. And as the
action goes on, we also meet Dooker's brother, so their
other uncle, who's called Whining Boy Wi Ni n G.

(20:37):
I don't know if that refers to his love of wine.
I'm not really sure. We were never told where whining
is wine. But that's with an age, Yeah, that's true.
This does not have an age. So he is a
professional piano player, and he shows up at a certain point,
and he also is like, no, she's not going to

(20:57):
sell that piano. Stop pressuring her to sell the piano.
The elders of the family know that Bernice, they somehow
sense that it's up to Bernice, and they know that
she doesn't want to sell. So boy Willie, her brother,
needs to just drop it find some other way to
come up with the money. So it comes out that

(21:19):
because we have this character Lyneman, who, as Margo says,
is the outsider, so through him we get to hear
all of this unfold. They explained to him that the
reason that Bernice is that the piano is so significant,
especially to Bernice, is that back when the family was

(21:40):
enslaved by the same family Sutton, the Sutton family, one
of the Sudden family were getting married and wanted to
make a present to his bride of a piano, but
he didn't and pianos back in the day that was
a humongous luxury item. It was like having a swimming
pool or it was definitely a status symbol to have.

(22:04):
Even an upright piano was a big, big deal, and
they were very expensive, and he could not afford to
buy a piano from the man who had a really
nice piano nearby in the area, and so he arranges
with the fellow who has the piano to sell that
he will trade him one and a half humans. Yes,

(22:24):
you know, like you do. He will trade him one
and a half humans for this piano, and the man
agrees on the condition that he gets to pick the humans.
So the man who wants to buy the piano, Sutton
lines up all of his enslaved people that he has
live in there and he's enslaved, and allows the piano

(22:49):
guy to pick who he wants to take. And originally
I think he wants to take. He wants to take
a woman and a boy and the woman's husband. He
offers to take the woman and the boy and trade
for the piano and purchase additionally this the father of

(23:10):
this family units to keep the family together. And but
Sutton won't sell the father because the father is this
master woodworker and he makes a lot of money off
of the beautiful woodwork that this man makes for him,
And so they break up the family. It's so messed up.

(23:31):
So they break up the family. They take the woman
and their son away in exchange for the piano. Now
here's the thing. The bride is like, yeah, the pianos
night the ride that all this sudden, this was innate
of right. The bride goes, yeah, the pianos, it's nice,

(23:52):
But I also kind of miss those enslaved people that
we had around, Like they were super helpful and they
did a lot of things for me, and I miss them.
So I'm too sad to play the piano. Okay. So
Sutton gets the father of that he's of the family.

(24:16):
He's just broken up, like, oh, hey, could she misses
your wife and child? Could you carve their pictures onto
the piano, you know, just to make it, just to
ease her loneliness. So he carves this the portrait from
memory of his departed wife and child who he is

(24:40):
never going to see again. But then he keeps carving.
He continues carving the entire story and history, everything that
he knows about the history of their family, his grandparents,
and him and his wife getting married, and his son

(25:00):
and his wife being taken away, all of that is
carved into the piano. And the Sutton, the guy who
owns the place, he is not too happy about this
because all he wanted was two portraits, and he's got
this whole family history on this dang piano now. But
his wife is delighted, so okay, greats. She has her

(25:25):
cake and she eats it too, so she's so happy
she plays the piano all the rest of her life. Now,
the little boy that's taken away in exchange for the piano,
he's Bernice. He's Bernice and Willie Boy's father. He grows
up and has a family of his own, Bernice and

(25:46):
Willie Boy, and he has a wife who's name Ola,
And understandably he cannot. He feels as though, as long
as that family owns the Sutton family owns that piano,
he owns part of he owns them still, even though

(26:07):
slavery is supposed to be over, and I think he's
a sharecropper on the Sutton land. So now slavery is
supposed to again is supposedly over, but we have we've
got reconstruction and sharecropping going on, and so he's I
think he's a sharecropper on Sutton's land. They're in Mississippi,
by the way, yes, And one day Willie Boy and

(26:32):
Bernice's father, whose name is Boy Charles, and his two brothers,
Uncle Doaker and Uncle Whining Boy. They arranged to steal
the piano back from the Sutton family while mister Sutton,
Missus Sutton has died, the bride in question is long dead,

(26:55):
and their son now owns the place. So this is
the younger mister Sutton, and he's at a Fourth of
July picnic. Everybody, all the white people are at this
Fourth of July picnic and Willie and Bernice's father, Charles
and his brothers sneak into the house steal the piano. Now,

(27:15):
the two brothers take the piano to an undisclosed location
and Charles stays behind to make it seem like, oh,
I don't know what happened, you know, I guess somebody
came and took your piano, mister Sutton. But we don't
really know what exactly happened when the Sutton came back

(27:36):
and found the piano missing. What we do know is
that number one, they burned down Charles's house to the
sharecropper house. But Charles escaped and he gets onto a
box car. He's on a box car out of town,
and the box car is called the Yellow Dog box
car because it's yellow. And he's on a box car
with four But they call Hobosts in the play, and

(28:00):
it's nineteen thirty six. He's on the plane with on
the train this box car with four hoes. They stop
the train. A mob stops the train, lynch mob, and
sets the train on fire, killing Charles, their father and
every also the other four innocent people who were in
this train. Then here's where the supernatural park comes in.

(28:26):
A little while after that, these white folks in the
town who run the town start mysteriously falling into wells
and dying. It's really strange. So people who were rumored
to have been part of this mob. And this is

(28:47):
the white people saying this. This is not the black
people spreading this rumor around. The white people know who
was there and who wasn't there, right, so so this
you know, so and so, mister so and so falls
into a well, and immediately the white people are like, oh, oh,
there's a curse. Those people they killed in that yellow
Dog box car there pushed him in the well. It's

(29:10):
the curse of the ghosts of the Yellow Dog. And
then not long after that, another person and eventually it's
like a dozen people who are killed by falling into
a well, which is quite something to follow.

Speaker 5 (29:23):
It as well, because they normally have sid of a
barrier around it, so you have to it's not open
in the ground, not Dolores clayswork where.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
He not that exactly, it's not that uh. They make
a point of saying in the play, like these wells
had they they were designed to not fall into them,
and yet people are falling into wells all over the place.
And finally, mister Sutton, the younger mister Sutton, who had
the piano stolen from him and who I'm pretty sure

(29:54):
murdered their father, he has just before this play has happens,
about three weeks before the play opens. He is the
last piece of puzzle. He has now fallen into a
well and died. And that is why Willy has the
opportunity to purchase that land. So but it's also why

(30:15):
Bernice is absolutely not going to sell the piano to
help him buy that land. It's very interesting because you
see each of them present their case. You see Bernice,
Bernice doesn't quite present her case. The elders present it
for her. But Willi is also making a very good case.

(30:36):
You know, his father, It's entirely possible his father would
have been really happy to have the family buy that
land back from the Smuttons, so it's you don't there's
no right or wrong. They both have a really compelling

(30:57):
case to make to sell the piano or not sell
the piano, and back and forth and back and forth,
and Bernice and Willie are fighting all the way through,
all the way through the first act. At one point,
while Willy is is really making a case, a good case,

(31:19):
I think why the piano should be sold, Bernice kind
of storms out and goes up the stairs and there's
a lot of screaming in this play. Screams bloody murder.
She comes back downstairs and she is shaken to the core.
She has seen the ghost of this younger mister Sutton

(31:40):
who's just fallen down the well three weeks before. And
her uncle right away is like, oh, yeah, she's seen
a ghost. And Willy is like, just stop this. You're
being dramatic just to keep me from you know, selling
this piano, you know, give me a break. But she

(32:00):
really believes that she's seen this, this ghost. And then
at the beginning of the second act, oh, we should
say that Willie and Lyneman when they when they arrive
in Pittsburgh, they arrive with a truck, a very rickety
truck that we're told in the script. I love the

(32:22):
way that truck it's described in the script. It's it's
it sounds as if it's made out of popsicle sticks.
This truck, like it just sounds so rickety. And we're
told it basically breaks down every six feet, like they
are forever. It's breaking down, and they're fixing it and
going a little bit farther, and it breaks down again,
and they fix it, and they go a little bit further,
and it has taken them forever to get this truckload

(32:43):
of watermelons to Pittsburgh. But they finally make it, and
Willie has saved up, He's worked hard and saved up
a certain amount of money. They're planning to sell the
watermelons and make a good amount of money on that,
and then he says, if I can get half of
this of this piano, that will give me enough money
to buy this one hundred acres of land. So hmm.

(33:09):
So the second act opens and they're selling these watermelons
and they're making their money. Then we meet, excuse me,
there's another character called avery, and avery all of these
people in this play and we're in Pittsburgh. Remember, all
of them know each other from when they all lived
in the South, not that well, but you know, they

(33:32):
o were all sort of neighbors and lived kind of
in the same general area. So when we meet Uncle Whining,
Uncle Whining used to know Lyman's father. You know, even
though he doesn't really know Lyman, he they all kind
of knew each other back home Avery too. Avery also
has come from the same area up to Pittsburgh, and

(33:54):
he has decided that he wants to be a preacher.
And he also was very much in love with Bernie.
Now Bernice is the play. When the play opens, she's
been widowed for three years in Maretha's father and it's
still really much carrying a torch for her deceased husband.
We don't quite know right away what happened to him,

(34:16):
but we know he's been gone, and she seems to
somehow blame her brother for her husband's death. So again,
it's just them fighting. It's just them fighting. Sell the piano,
don't sell the piano, Sell the piano, don't sell the piano.
And along the way, more and more of the family
story unfolds. Eventually we learn that Lyman and Willie had

(34:45):
enlisted Bernice's dead husband had enlisted. His name is Crawley,
had enlisted Crawley to help them steal uh. And it
was a minor it was a minor theft. Really. They
were working on a lumber job and they were kind
of squirreling away a little bit of lumber to sell

(35:08):
for themselves. Not a lot, just a little tiny bit.
But they got caught in the act, and Willie and
Lyman get caught up by the sheriff. Liman gets shot.
They both go to jail for quite a long time,
and Crawley sadly is killed in this kerfuffle, murdered by

(35:30):
the police. I think it's also described as like there's
also a mob, you know, there's a little mob mentality
going on here. It's the South in the thirties. And
so Bernice really blames her brother for this, and he's like,
that wasn't me, Like we all tried to get out

(35:51):
of there. He just was just the luck of the draw.
Lineman got shot, I ended up in jail. It could
have been anybody. This is just how it happen. And
she's like, no, you know, my husband didn't know that
it was stolen. Wood and he's like, yeah, he knew
he did, no, actually, yeah, yeah, he probably did. So

(36:12):
again as they're fighting, every time the fighting starts to escalate,
supernatural things start happening in the house. And so the
first time Bernice sees the ghost of Sutton, and then
Marefa sees Marifa. Hears them arguing and it's kind of eavesdropping,
and she sees the ghost of Sutton. And then after that, Doker,

(36:39):
the uncle whose house it is, he confides to I
can't remember if he confides to Willie or to his brother,
whining that before all of this he had seen the
ghost of Sutton in the house. So that's why he
believed Bernice right away. He saw the ghost of Sutton,
like I don't think he even knew that Sutton had
been killed yet, and he saw the ghost of Sutton

(37:01):
in his house, so that's why he totally believes Bernice.
So Bernice, who is determined not to sell the piano,
but worried about these ghosts because now her daughter is
seeing them, that really worries her. We're led to believe
that Bernice's kind of seeing ghosts all the time. And

(37:23):
Bernice asks Avery, who again wants to marry her asks
him because he's like, hey, you you want to be
a preacher, how about you get these ghosts out of
my house? And he's like, I'm just a brand new preacher.
But okay, I know he really tries. He he studies up.

(37:44):
He loves her, so he goes home and he's studying
up to figure out how to exercise these ghosts out
of the house. Meanwhile, Bernice and Willie are still fighting.
And this is a wonderful scene because Bernice Willy is
going on and on about my dad would have wanted
me to sell this piano. DA wanted me to have
the land. My dad died to have this piano. My dad,

(38:05):
my dad, my dad. And she says, we also had
a mom who was left alone with two kids and
never was the same again after what happened because of
this dang piano. And she tells she tells some of
the mother's story and how the mother basically became obsessed

(38:29):
with this piano for the progressively more so for the
rest of her life, and would kind of force Bernice
to play the piano. She would polish the piano with
her tears and actual blood, yes, and then say to

(38:49):
her child I've polished this piano with my tears and
actual blood play it now. So unsurprisingly, when the mother dies,
her niece is like, I am never touching that piano.
But she does teach her daughter to play. She does
not burden her daughter with the history, the burden of

(39:13):
the piano, the history of the piano, what it actually means.
But she does see the value of the music and
does want to in part the good part of it,
the joyful part of it. And there's all That's another
piece of this play that's so wonderful is we do
have these moments of music and joy because the family

(39:37):
is getting together and even though they're arguing about this piano,
they're also delighting in being with each other. They have
survived a lot, and here they are up in the
north in Pittsburgh, and they all, even the elders, they
all have some prospect of a brighter future ahead of them,

(40:01):
and so there is there is also this joy that's
going on. And then you have little Maritha, you know,
and everybody just loves her. So the ghosts get more
and more active, and Avery is doing his his straight
out of the box preacher best to try to get
rid of them, and Willy is now also spooked and

(40:24):
he's also like taunting them. He starts taunting them, which
is a mistake. Hey, don't do that. Don't talk ghosts.
Here's a tip. The undead can beat you. Yes, yeah,
maybe don't do that. And because the ghost of Sutton,
which we I don't think we ever see in the
stage play. No, it's just hand like sound and light, right,

(40:47):
the ghost of Sutton starts for real beating up Willie,
throwing him around, throwing him down the stairs, like really
beating beating this guy up for real. And poor Avery,
the brand new preacher is trying his best, and it's
like it's he's out of his depth here, and so

(41:08):
what has to happen? Bernice. Bernice fits down at the
piano and starts to play and starts to chant the
names of all of the ancestors, her parents, her grandparents,
her great grandparents, and ask them for help and beg

(41:34):
them for help, and the whole I mean, it's so moving.
The whole last scene is she is just begging and
begging and chanting and begging and summoning these ancestors that
she has been terrified of summoning into her house for
all these years. Now she's begging them to come and
drive this spirit of Sutton out of the house. And

(41:57):
they do yes, and which is good because they're like
Sonon's about to kill her brother, and her brother says
basically again relents and says, Okay, you know, you got
to keep the piano, but you better continue to play it.
That's the condition. You better continue to play it, and

(42:20):
you know, make sure that your daughter knows the legacy
and that she learns how to play. Otherwise the ghost
and I are both going to be back. And that's
how the play ends. It's incredible.

Speaker 6 (42:35):
It's so again it's such a simple, elegant little story
and yet it's just so it's so gorgeous, all of
these layers of family and history.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
And I just loved it so much.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
Yeah, music makes a big difference in the story. There's
a few times where characters are singing and they sing
together and it's to kind of show a point. But
also just the piano in this house and like the
little one can play it, but Bernice doesn't want to
play it anymore. But yeah, it's it's like having this
scrap book or a photo album. That's what they have
is this piano. They don't have what everybody else has.

(43:11):
So that's it's their history, their their family history. It's
so much more than so many black families ever have, right. Yeah,
And some people are more sentimental than others. That's just
how they're built. And some people, like I had a friend,
you would give her a birthday card, she'd look, I go,
oh thanks, and she'd throw it out right away, right
in front of you. Not to be mean, it's just
to her like, Okay, where's I can hold onto it

(43:35):
for years. It's so like they like you said, when
I like about the place, Like they both have a
good point, you know, like we want to move forward,
we want to be successful. What's the best way to
do that? How we honor our past and move forward
into the future without getting too stuck in there. And
it's just it's a beautiful story and it's and there's
a there's a great scenes where Bernice like different men

(43:56):
try to woo Bernice, and yeah, and Lyman gets the
closest and Lyman were kind of said, is rather dim
witted or just kind of really really quiet.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
We're not quite sure what his deal is country.

Speaker 7 (44:09):
That's what they say in the place. He's a country
willy are described as real country, and he is obsessed
with women, and he says he dreams about women. He's
got all he's had all these one night stands, but
he wants to fall in love. He really wants like
a partner, and so he's.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
And Lyman also is the reason that Lyman has. You know,
You're like, why does he even going along with all
of this? Like what does he get out of this?
Lyman's aim in all of this was he was intending
to live in Pittsburgh, like he's he's there to stay.
So he's that's why he came along with with Willie
because he's not getting a cut of this piano or
getting in on this land. He doesn't care about that.

(44:46):
He doesn't ever want to go back, right, So yes,
he's he's sort of the naive, starry eyed you know,
coming up to the north, to the big city and
all of the possibilities are just dazzling him.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
And black communities together and supporting each other like that's all.
That's also kind of like for his future, that's what
he's dreaming of. Yeah, and I love that he knows
that he has that there too, which is it's just
it's so good.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
And I love. Whining is a really great character. He's
trying to sell his suits.

Speaker 5 (45:24):
He has a suit that he's trying to sell a
secondhand and he's convinced it's where like fifty dollars, but
he sells it to Liman for three dollars and then
Lyman is like, oh, I want to go out to
the movies. I want to meet a woman, like we
got to meet some women, and so he gets this
new suit and then he's like, but I need shoes,
and then Whining says, well, what size you were?

Speaker 8 (45:42):
Is this?

Speaker 5 (45:43):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Nine?

Speaker 5 (45:43):
Because I have size nine shoes. They'll fit you perfectly.
And Liman puts the shoes on. They're clearly a size
too small and that must hurt. But he and he
even shows up like, look we're the same size.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
It fits me.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
That should fit you too, So he buys the shoes
as well, and that's kind of his persona is to like,
you know, gloss him up a little bit to meet
a potential person. And that's how he then has a
scene with Bernice and he offers her perfume and he's
the one person that she can kind of like, all right,
you know, it's been a few years.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Maybe he seems nice. I mean they have a kiss,
and that's it, right. It doesn't go any farther than that.
Will there's a scene this this is the only part
I think is cut from the movie, but there's other anyway,
Willy has a scene where he has so both of

(46:34):
both Willy and Lyman go out to paint the town.
They've sold their watermelons, and yes there's they have. They
put a bunch of it aside, but they also have
a little bit of fun money and they're gonna go
have some fun in Pittsburgh. And Lyman has his new
magic suit that he's bought from Whining Uncle Whining and
uh but Willy cut in the play. Willy comes back
with the girl that he's picked up named Grace, and

(46:58):
Willy and Grace are about to get it on down
on the sofa, but Bernice wakes up and comes down
and puts a stop and basically puts them out of
the house, both of them and then Lyman comes back
and that's when they share that kiss. Lyman we learn
was interested in Grace, and Willie just kind of swooped
in and swept her off her feet. And he was

(47:21):
too slow. So but yeah, they do share a kiss
and it's very sweet, and Bernice puts a stop to
anything going any farther than that, and they both go
to bed. It's lovely. It's I love the whole thing.
I just love the I love the relationships of the

(47:41):
men to each other. They really care about each other,
they really are looking out for each other. Whining, we
should say, also has just lost the woman that he loves.
That's why he's passing. It's just a coincidence that he's
passing through Pittsburgh at the same time as Willie and
Lyman are passing through Pittsburgh. Whining is going. We think

(48:06):
he's going back down South because again he's he's now
considers himself basically a widow, where he's lost the woman
that he loves and he's no longer interested in being
a flashy piano player. That's why he's selling his suits,
and you know, he's trying to pay his way to
travel back back home. And uh, it's just a it's
an interesting period in history. I think it's a really

(48:28):
interesting setting to have it be in Pittsburgh. You know,
we've got the steel industry. Everybody's about to get involved in.
And Bernice is such an interesting character, so strong. You know,
she's got all these men telling her what's what, and she's.

Speaker 5 (48:46):
Like, no, no, And there's a great speech he has
where she says, like, why do I have to be
with a man?

Speaker 8 (48:54):
Like?

Speaker 5 (48:54):
You know, as soon as I lose somebody's people want
me to find someone else, Like, you know, you get
to be yourself. You know, it's a okay for you
to be single. It's okay for you to but not me.
And and she doesn't and she's calling bs on that
she's a great character.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
She's a really great character. And it's interesting because we again,
we don't meet her right away in the script where
it's it's Willy shows up. The script opens, and the
movie will too when we see it. But Willy and
Lyman arrive in Pittsburgh at like four in the morning

(49:29):
in their rickety little you know, in their rickety little
truck full of watermelon, and Uncle Doker just happens to
be up because he's old and he's just up and
he's just up and awake, and so they are sitting
and talking and they're talking about the piano. So there's
a lot of talking about Bernice before we actually meet Bernice, and.

Speaker 9 (49:52):
I just.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
It's just wonderful. It's just such a great, great story. Again,
very very little happens, very little actually happens, but we
come away with this whole family saga. It's just masterfully
done and just beautiful, beautiful writing. I just love the

(50:15):
way he describes all the settings and everything. You know,
this the August Wilson's scripts that we've read are They're
just so fun to read. So many things that you
just maybe you might not notice it if you were
only seeing it on Broadway the one time that you
got to see it on Broadway, but if you read
the script before or after seeing it, like there's a

(50:38):
lot of details, every little every little thing has been
thought out, all the lights and everything, and I just
it's just absolutely wonderful. I agree with the New York Times,
Yes I do too. Well. So then we have so
Denzel Washington.

Speaker 5 (50:55):
He's obviously he's very attached to August Wilson and his work,
and he's now, you know, he's a huge movie star.
He started producing movies and it's he found it to be.
He's made a deal with Netflix to produce a bunch
of films that are based on August Wilson plays, and
Denzel sells tickets. People love to see Denzel Washington, so

(51:16):
I can see why. But it's his sons. Malcolm is
the director, and then we have John David is in
the cast, and also his daughter is one.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Of the producers. It's very much, Yeah, the Alton family production,
the Wilson family, because August Wilson died in two thousand
and five. Is that when he passed five or six. Yeah,
the Wilson family went to Denzel and basically, you know,
said we trust you to be the one to bring

(51:50):
these plays to the screen.

Speaker 9 (51:52):
And so.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
So Denzel has like it's sort of like the this
is sort of the project of this part of his
life now is bringing these amazing plays to the screen.
And we again we talked about Fences, which is a
spectacular film. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was amazing. Oh, I

(52:18):
just think about that movie all the time. The and
the plays are so beautiful. But but you know, it's
very much a commitment of a personal commitment to the
Wilson family and the in August Wilson to really present
these in a way that is worthy of of his legacy.
And I love that he brought you know, he's the

(52:42):
producer on here, but but it's very much like his
whole family putting this thing together, and it's so lovingly done.
I am just I read the play and I thought, oh,
I cannot wait to see the film of this. I
was so excited because we've seen two of these productions

(53:02):
already and we've seen how great they've done them, and
so I I had of What I'm trying to say
is I had a very high bar. You know, he,
mister mister Washington, has set us a very high barye
what you expect from these adaptations. And the moment it's
it comes up our first seed, I've blown away. I'm already.

(53:24):
I'm just like, I'm so ready to see this film.
I just was so excited, so delighted by every single choice.
Do we have the trailer? The trailer? We did the trailer.
I love this trailer too. I mean every just like
in the script, like every detail is so considered, even
the trailer. Okay, let's let's play the trailer. M That

(54:03):
piano is the story of our whole family. Now, Granddaddy
he called me all of this, but everything he made.

Speaker 10 (54:18):
Mister Sutter owned because they owned him. Boy, y'all's talked
about that piano all the time. As long as Sutter
had it, he had us. And that's why Bernice ain't
gonna sell that piano because her daddy died over it.

Speaker 11 (54:43):
But I was supposed to build off what they left me.
You ain't touched that piano the whole time it's been.

Speaker 9 (54:50):
Here, Mamma, play it as you said. Catchers come alive,
h house.

Speaker 11 (55:05):
Clown net pilm because I don't want to whip them spirits.

Speaker 10 (55:11):
You feel that.

Speaker 8 (55:15):
That's your family, that's your blood.

Speaker 11 (55:23):
M m m.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
M hmmmmmmmm mm hmmmmmmmmmmm mm hmmmmmm.

Speaker 5 (55:42):
The music is by Alexandra Displatt Dave's Platt. I it's
it's everything that's been used in this film. The choices
they make are just incredible. I think the art direction
is amazing.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
The sets like, oh, it opens so unlike like unlike
the play Again, the play all takes place in the
first floor of Doker's uncle Doaker's house, so basically his
his living room. I don't even know if we see
the kitchen in the in the play version, and we
see a little bit a little glimpse of his bedroom,
which is in a room off of the living room.

(56:18):
The movie opens on the night of the Fourth of
July Picnic, when their father is and uncles are stealing
the piano. I mean, I saw fireworks and I was like, oh,
I was so excited it right away. It pulls you in.

(56:46):
You see these people at a Fourth of July picnic
and you're like, what is going on? Why are they
Why are they stealing this piano.

Speaker 5 (56:54):
And risking their lives. I mean, you know it's dangerous
the second they're doing it. You know it's not it's
the it's a clandestine operation. It could go really bad
at any second. Yeah, the movie came out. It was
introduced at the Tell You Ride Film Festival in August,
and then it came out November eighth on Netflix. I'm

(57:16):
not sure why this didn't get more Academy Award nominations,
but we're gonna show a few clips here. I was actually,
I was super impressed with this production and all the
actors that are here, and some of them were in Fences.
I think some of them are friends of Denzel Washington
or maybe they've worked with August Wilson in the past.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
But it's really quite an amazing cast. As you mentioned
just before we played the clip. It's directed by Malcolm Washington,
his directorial debut. It is beautifully directed. There are so
many angles and we'll talk about them as we go

(57:54):
through this, but so many choices that you could never
do on a stage that just tell and contributes so
much to this story. It's extremely well directed. You really
get that relationship in the dynamic of everybody to each other.
Spectacular screenplay by Malcolm Washington and Virgil Williams, who we

(58:17):
talked about when we talked about Mudbound, which is in
the other spectacular adaptation that we covered. I think it's
on our Patreon wall. Oh that's such a good movie.
It's such a great screenplay. Produced by Denzel Washington and
Todd Black. Now, okay, let's talk about our cast. Yes,

(58:37):
we have our uncle, Samuel Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson. So
in the original, the original premiere of this play at
the Yale Rep he's playing boy Willie, and here he's
now playing Uncle Dooker. Amazing.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
John David Washington is boy Willie, Isaiah Gunn is young
boy Willie. Daniel Deadweiler is Bernice. She's wonderful. Kylie Allen
is young Bernice Ray Fisher as Lyman, who's I didn't
know who this was for a while there I had
because I've watched the Avengers movies.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
I was this guy so good, and then I was, oh,
my god.

Speaker 5 (59:13):
It's Sam Corey Hark Hawkins as Avery, Michael pop Potts
as whining Boy. Erica Badoo is Lucille. Erica Bado is there.
I mean, so many amazing people. I Pauletta Washington, It's
there's all the Washington family is all over this. But
there's also just amazing character actors. And it was filmed

(59:36):
in Georgia and in Pittsburgh, so and it really does
great use of the locations. Uh yeah, do we want
to play this next scene? It's Bernice and Avery.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
Yeah, so again Avery. Avery also comes from the same
so they all, everybody all came up north together except
for Willie and Lyman, but they all so they all
know each other from back home. So Bernice and Avery
have a long history. Even though he's now asking her
to marry only just now asking her to marry him,

(01:00:12):
he does know her from back home. So he's the
one that wants to be a preacher, here we go.

Speaker 9 (01:00:20):
I ain't ready to get married.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Now, you two young a women to close up?

Speaker 9 (01:00:25):
But Ni, she ain't said nothing about closing up.

Speaker 8 (01:00:28):
I got a lot of women left with me.

Speaker 11 (01:00:30):
But where is that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Huh?

Speaker 11 (01:00:31):
When the last time he looked at it?

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
That's a nasty thing to say.

Speaker 11 (01:00:39):
And you call yourself a preacher.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Anytime I get anywhere near you, it's like you're pushing
me away.

Speaker 11 (01:00:44):
I got enough on my hands with Maritha. I got
enough people to love and take care of.

Speaker 9 (01:00:49):
Okay, Well, who you got to love you?

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
Okay, nobody get close enough to you, doker, can't have
say nothing to you to jump all over board with
who you got to love you?

Speaker 11 (01:01:02):
Trying to tell me a woman can't be nothing without
a man. But you, all right, you can just walk
out of here without me, without a woman and still
be a man.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
That's all right.

Speaker 11 (01:01:14):
Ain't nobody gonna ask you, avery, who you got to
love you? That's all right for you. But everybody gonna
be worried about Bernice. How Bernice is gonna take care
of herself? How she gonna raise that child without a man?

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
Wonder what she do with herself? How's she gonna live
like that.

Speaker 11 (01:01:28):
Everybody got all kinds of questions for Bernice. Everybody telling
me I can't be a woman unless I got a man. Well,
you tell me, Avery, you know how much.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
Woman am I? It wasn't me, Bernice.

Speaker 11 (01:01:39):
You can't blame me for nobody.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Ain't blaming nobody for nothing. I will say.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
When she's not on screen, I miss her, Yes, I
will say. I think she is the glue of this
whole production. I think there's something in that that's the character,
that's the character. But the actress is just so compelling,
and he's such a nice man, and he and but
I had an aunt like that that never got married

(01:02:14):
and had a few men try to woo her. And
I remember hearing in the family like how come she
didn't take his proposals? And she was like, I'm fine.
I inherited the house I got. You know, I'm doing
I'm doing well. And I'm a single person. I know
how that feels too. People do tend to look at
you like, well, what do you exist for if you
don't have a kid.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
I mean, I don't know. I'm just being me, y'all.
But she holds like so much.

Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
She feels like she's responsible for the family history that's
also part of this piano, and they and she feels
like they all should because their stories are all they
have to pass on. But also her brother feels the
same thing, you know, he just has a different way.
To him, the history is the land and to her
the history is the piano. They both are right, you know,

(01:03:05):
they both have a good point.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
It's yeah, they both have a good point. It's so
well done, and it's got the it's it's got the humor.
I love the way that we just like in just
like in the other two adaptations that we talked about
that the Washington Is produced of these plays, they really

(01:03:30):
do such a wonderful job of using the locations in
a way that you simply cannot do on the stage.
And in this one, I really loved how we have
and you don't have this in the other two, but
in this one we really see there's a lot of
playing off this there's a lot of duality. We've got

(01:03:52):
Bernice and Willie, you know, and we've got the north
and the south, the city in the country, and I
love the way the film shows you the country and
they make it look absolutely beautiful, Like when Willy's remembering
being on the land with his father. I mean, it's
absolutely golden and gorgeous. And then you have the city

(01:04:15):
where everybody's all these people have have come up from
the South and Doaker's house. I love the way they've
done Doker's house, every little detail, every the wallpaper and
just everything. And we get to see in the play
they just talk about it. But in the movie we

(01:04:37):
get to see Lyman and Willie go out on the
town in the big city in Pittsburgh, and they're just
so excited and they go to this nightclub and the
singer is Erica too sure, that's all it's It's so great,
and we get to see people enjoying themselves. And again
there's a lot of this joy, this joy of this

(01:05:01):
community in this moment of that is very there's a
lot going on very front. And the costumes, like they
go to the nightclub and all the way everybody's dressed up,
and and I love Erka Badiu's costume that she's singing
and performing in. And oh, and a lot of it

(01:05:23):
takes place at night or during the you know that
we we warning hours but in the past and the present,
and and when they and I it's wonderful to see
as they're recounting the past, uh, pretty much word for
word as it is in the script, but we get

(01:05:43):
to see, we get to see what it would look
like when they had to break up their father's family,
you know, when their fathers get taken away from his father.
It's a little boy and the piano, you know, what
did it look like before it was carved. We get
to see all of that, and it's just so beautifully done.
That house, and.

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
And then just a couple of generations removed, first from
slavery and then from when the piano was stolen long ago.
It was Yeah, so the piano was stolen in nineteen eleven,
stolen back you know, yeah, patriot whatever you want to
call it. Yeah, So here there, like twenty five years later,
but it's still like that. These they still have all
these remnants of the end of the Civil Wars.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
Not that long I got jackets in my closet that old.
It's not that long ago. Same, Yeah, so it's there,
you know, they're.

Speaker 12 (01:06:35):
There.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Bernice and Willie's father was born into slavery. He was
an enslaved baby, you know, so it's not it's really
not that long ago. It's there, one generation removed from
that and in the middle of it. And also they've

(01:06:58):
also just lived through you know, reconstruction and World War
One and the depression. All of that history gets really
woven into this story in such a seamless and elegant way. Oh,
it's just gorgeous. That little girl, she's so good, she's

(01:07:19):
so much, so cute, she's just she's absolutely perfect. She's
a little she seems a little younger than in the play.
But I like that. I like that she's I like
that she's a little bit younger, and she's another one
like Lyman that's a bit of an outsider and is

(01:07:43):
just getting exposed to this story which is and seeing
that it's also her story and doesn't quite know yet
what her role in it is going to be. And
the supernatural parts of it with the ghosts, you know
in the play. In the play, it's extremely moving and

(01:08:07):
very well done, just hinted at, as we said, with
lights and sound, here we get flashes of of these,
not Sutton, who is terrifying, yes, by the way, the
stuff of nightmares. And but also when the ancestors do
come and we see them, I mean, it's goosebumps. It's Oh,

(01:08:31):
it's so beautiful, all their different costumes and hot and
and they show up and I love.

Speaker 8 (01:08:41):
You.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
You get a sense of this in the script, but
I think the movie really because of the way that
they've shot it. Again, the direction in this is so
wonderful that you really the movie really shows how the ancestors,
even though Bernice is the one that is summoning them,
when they show up, they show up for all of

(01:09:04):
these people. They show up for their whole family, they
show up for Doker and Whining and Willie, all of them.
And uh, it's it's so beautifully shot. I love the choice. Like,

(01:09:24):
here's just an example. There's so many great choices in
this thing. Just start to finish opening it with the
fourth of July picnic Ah. I was not expecting that.
I don't know why. I was just so excited. But
as we said, like we hear about Bernice, they talk
about Bernice, don't wake up Bernice. It serarely Bernice isn't

(01:09:46):
that yet. You know, she's not gonna be happy, She's
not gonna want to sell that piano. Bernice, Bernice, Bernice.
The first that we see of Bernice is her feet
hitting the floor in her fers like what is going
on in house? And we just see her feet, her
feet like walk in like oh no, here comes Bernice.
And and at that moment, we the audience realize like, oh,

(01:10:12):
we're going to be walking with Bernice through this, okay, okay.
And there's several moments like that where we see Bernice.
It's Bernice walking, it's it's it's following. The camera follows
her in a different way than it follows everybody else,
even even Maurica the little girl. The whole thing with
the water symbolizing the ancestors cut. Oh, I don't even

(01:10:39):
know what to say. It's it's such a good you guys,
just watch it. It's on Netflix. It's so freaking good.
Read the play. Get to the script. I got mine
at my local library to the script belong. There's very
little that's not in the screenplay. And then and then
the screenplay has extra stuff like them selling the watermelon,

(01:10:59):
like that's this is a great fun scene. Yea, that's
a joyous scene because they're talking to like, Oh, we're
going to sell these watermelons. We're gonna make so much money.
And I don't know about you, but I was like, really,
I did too. I was like, is this a deal? Okay?

Speaker 5 (01:11:13):
But I grew up with watermelon, Like it's not an
exotic fruit.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
I mean, it's just something we all had.

Speaker 12 (01:11:18):
But they're Oh, people are clamoring over each other for
these watermelons, like a hand over fists and they're just
making And in the play they talk about they describe
it about like wow, people really wanted the watermelons, so
we up the price and we made even more money.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
But it's so fun to see it. I just love
that scene where the people are just walking in to
buy these watermelons. Of course, the nightclub scene, the scenes
of and we should say, isn't that isn't that Denzel
Washington's wife that plays the mother.

Speaker 5 (01:11:53):
Yes, and the flashback Yeah, Mama Ola, Mama Ola, Yeah,
Pal Washington.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
And I love those scenes because she doesn't say anything.
She just we just see her again polishing, polishing and
polishing the piano. And this poor woman who has lost
so much.

Speaker 5 (01:12:15):
Her get to her crying over this piano and polishing.
I mean, this poor woman just she'd just been through it,
been through it, all of it is just so so gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
I just love it so much. I'm so excited. I
don't even know which one they're doing next. Oh, I
have not Yeah, they just get better and better. Each
one is better than the last. It's I'm so excited
for these movies. Do we want to play another clip? Yeah,

(01:12:50):
let's see where are we we've got? Did we play
Bernice and Boy Willie yet?

Speaker 5 (01:12:55):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Oh? Okay, because this is a fun one cause I
ain't talk back.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Now, I don't know.

Speaker 11 (01:13:06):
I ain't never done that.

Speaker 9 (01:13:11):
Can read the gone?

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
Get rid of for me?

Speaker 9 (01:13:13):
Do your hair?

Speaker 8 (01:13:14):
Oh, mama, our the hab this is gone?

Speaker 11 (01:13:18):
Yeah, run cross the street and get another can.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
And you come straight back too.

Speaker 11 (01:13:23):
Don't be playing around out there and watch the cars.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
You careful when you cross the street.

Speaker 9 (01:13:34):
Or will that une told you to leave my house?

Speaker 11 (01:13:36):
Why ain't in your house? I'm in Dokah's house. Dokah
tell him to leave.

Speaker 3 (01:13:43):
Tell 'em the gone boy.

Speaker 10 (01:13:44):
Well, I ain't done nothing for me to put him
out the house. Now, I done told y'all if you
can't get along, just gone.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
Don't have nothing to do. It wasn't nothing.

Speaker 9 (01:13:52):
There Now, I'm not your part of the house.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
Consider me done.

Speaker 11 (01:13:56):
Left your part as soon as a line, me get
back with that rope. I'm carrying that pian out of here.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
In seven I got something to make you leave it
over there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
I got to come back and this starty two twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Don't y'all stop that boy?

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
Will it?

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Don't leave alone while you got standing pick.

Speaker 9 (01:14:09):
With a time piggy with her.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
I told her the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
She didn't want to talk about what she got.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
I just told her what she batter had.

Speaker 8 (01:14:16):
That's why I don't talk to him.

Speaker 11 (01:14:17):
Don't try and talk to him. That's the only kind
of stuff that come out of his mouth.

Speaker 12 (01:14:21):
You say, everyone home, get it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:23):
By what a gonna do?

Speaker 9 (01:14:26):
Nothing good?

Speaker 3 (01:14:27):
I wish they would try to tell me something about
this pan. You could just imagine them bickering from the
time they could talk. Yeah, you totally buy it. You
totally buy that. These two they love each other, they
just don't see things the same way. And they've been

(01:14:48):
bickering the entire time since.

Speaker 5 (01:14:51):
He got there, and she wasn't expecting him. He just
showed up one day with a truck full of waters. Yeah,
I am a friend, and I was like, oh, by
the way, we're taking this out of your home. This
one thing you absolutely love that reminds you of your
parents and your history. I'm going to take this away.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
You could hear his father in his voice too, you
really can't. Yeah more, I would say more more in
this than yeah. I don't know. Maybe because it's an
August fills, I don't know, but I agree. There's there's
so many moments for you. You just can't help it.
You're just like, yeah, yeah there, yeah, there it is.
Ah y, yeah, yeah, there it is. How much would

(01:15:32):
it you've loved to have seen Damuel L. Jackson play
that role? I wish there were some recording of it,
I know. And how much fun for him, Yeah, to
come back and play uncle I just so great. So
he's wonderful. He loves both of them. Yeah, he loves

(01:15:53):
both of them, and he sees he's not taking sides
at all. He sees that each of them has their
amazing Uh. We should mention we briefly mentioned this is
not the first adaptation of this play. No, so nineteen
ninety five.

Speaker 5 (01:16:13):
It's the Hallmark Hall of Fame it comes out, which
I think is on CBS at the time.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
But we have Charles S.

Speaker 5 (01:16:19):
Dutton as Willie Boy, and we should play that clip next.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
It's it's similar to what we played.

Speaker 5 (01:16:25):
So it's the Burda birda scene and I played the
first one at the top that's from this one. This
is from the nineteen ninety five version.

Speaker 3 (01:16:33):
I found.

Speaker 8 (01:16:37):
End bat down there on apartment farm.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
I ain't think about no apartment farm.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
You liable to go back and flying. They had live
on down there singing bird.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
Up, bird.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Boy, Hollo.

Speaker 8 (01:17:01):
Bird bird.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
Oh, Dad will go head and married doll shall wait
on me, go ahead, and Mary Doll shall wait on me.

(01:17:32):
Willa my nu wont show.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
And go freever.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
My nd wont show, I go free?

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Will come on, Doc.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Dug no listen, I David, very very sweet. It really is,
I did hear. So it's mixed reviews.

Speaker 5 (01:18:04):
Some people do not like this version and they're not
into the supernatural elements and how it's.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
Also saw mixed reviews. I did not understand.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
I don't either.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):
It's a movie.

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
There's you know, if you have you have a bigger budget,
and it can you could do more things, if you
could take it off that set and go other places.
Why not also make the the horror horror horrifying, you know,
make it more gothic and scary and also like, so.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
Look, we've done a lot of adaptations, yes, over the years,
and we've done a lot of play to movies, and
that is the advantage that with a film you can
have more locations than you can on a stage play.
And sometimes it's not done that well. Sometimes it's just
go a little nuts with that, and they don't. It's

(01:18:56):
not really serving the story or serving the the arc
of the of the play or the meaning of it.
And this is just it just I don't know how
anybody could object. I mean, it's just it's only making
it richer and deeper and giving us even more meaning

(01:19:19):
and without hitting us over the head of the symbolism
that it easily could have. But it doesn't at all. Oh,
it's I just do not understand the some of the
negative things that I saw about this this film.

Speaker 5 (01:19:37):
I mean, and they were nominated for I mean there's
just page after page of film festivals that they were
in that they were nominated for. Denver Film Festival, Hampton's,
San Diego Film Festival, you know, Utah Film Critics Association,
Black Reel Awards, I mean all of these places, and
it just I was like it didn't get the Golden

(01:19:58):
Globes or the Academy Awards, and I think if nobody
it should be her, it should be Danielle Dundweiler. If
anything else, she absolutely deserves it. Like I said, she
holds this movie together. If we don't believe her, we
don't really care about the story.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
Yeah, she was nominated for SAG Award. Okay, that's good,
But no, I totally agree. It's so beautifully done, great ensemble.
I mean, what do you say, it's what would you change?
Not a thing, not a single thing. I mean, they

(01:20:36):
added so many things I would never have imagined, and
they're so good and they add so much. I love
the nightclub scene. It's so much fun to go with
them to the nightclub. Yeah. I don't know, so okay,
so play or movie.

Speaker 5 (01:20:55):
I'm gonna give the advantage to the play because I
did like watching the other version as well, even though
it's different, and I would love to see this live.
So if I have to pick something, I'll give it
a little bit of an edge to the play. But
I really recommend if you haven't seen this movie, you
should definitely check this movie out, and especially if you
haven't seen it. August Wilson production. You should check this out.

Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
Yeah, yeah, oh yes, I think so too, even though
I love this film, so impressed by this film, but
the play is so beautifully written. Yeah, it's really good.
It's really really good. It's a very special work of art,

(01:21:39):
and the film really does do it justice. I can't imagine,
like just if I didn't know that this film existed
or the other film existed, and the other one looks
like it's pretty good.

Speaker 12 (01:21:54):
To me.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Yeah, if you're curious, how do you make a movie
of this? How on earth would you make a movie
of this? And yet they do it so successfully? But
it is a play, like the script does sort of
defy adaptation in this way. I don't. I'm just blown
away that they did it, but I do have to

(01:22:17):
kind of give it to the original material. Yeah, for
this one, it's it's awfully good. Yeah, I really love it.
I really really love it. Okay, so what are we
doing next? Well? What is the date? It's a it's.

Speaker 5 (01:22:35):
Today, is the twenty third, So it's next week. There's
twenty eight, So it's in March.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Is it gonna be? It'll be March? So should we
do Wicked?

Speaker 11 (01:22:48):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:22:48):
That's right, we were gonna do Wicked, nominated for a
lot of Academy Awards.

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
I haven't seen it yet. I am eager to see
it the Okay, yes, I think that would be a
good idea. Yeah. I read the book back when it
came out a lot time ago, but I've never read
the play. I have to get my hands on the script. Okay. Yeah,

(01:23:17):
let's do Wicked.

Speaker 5 (01:23:18):
Oh great, Okay, so that's coming up next. As you
can tell, we're always looking for suggestions, so please come
out or reach out to us. All those places I
mentioned at the top of the show also our email
once again, Book versus Movie podcast, Spillttle Out at gmail
dot com, and Margo where can they find you?

Speaker 3 (01:23:34):
You can find me online at coloniabook dot com and
all my social media call outs are at Cheese not
your Mama and where can they find you?

Speaker 5 (01:23:40):
You can find me at Brooklynfichick dot com. I'm at
Brooklynfichick for Threads and Instagram. I'm at Brooklyn Margo for
TikTok and Blue Sky, and my YouTube is at my
name Margo Donahue. Okay, everybody, thank you so much for listening,
and we'll be back soon with a new episode.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
MM hmm, call it on.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
Him, but he's call on him.

Speaker 8 (01:24:22):
You don't you to help me? Want you to help me?
I would you to help me? Yeah, needs to help me.

(01:24:43):
I wish you to have my nest. You help me.
I want you to help you?

Speaker 11 (01:24:51):
Und you.

Speaker 8 (01:24:54):
Hold you. I want you to help me.

Speaker 9 (01:24:59):
I want you.

Speaker 8 (01:25:02):
Help.

Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
I want did to help me? Mama, Bernie, so work
today help me? I want to to help Mama.

Speaker 10 (01:25:13):
I want to to help me.

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):
Wait, did it help your public book toolls?

Speaker 8 (01:25:17):
I work to the help.

Speaker 10 (01:25:18):
I went to to help me. Mama.

Speaker 11 (01:25:20):
LO want to the help. I want to the help.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
I went to the help.

Speaker 11 (01:25:25):

Speaker 8 (01:25:26):

Speaker 11 (01:25:28):
I want you to help me. I want to help.

Speaker 5 (01:25:35):
Thank you so much for listening to the Book Versus
Movie podcast. We're a part of the Speaker podcast network.
Go to speaker dot com to check out all of
the shows they offer. We asked you make sure to
subscribe to our podcast, Book vs. Movie and your podcast
app so that way you'll never miss an episode.

Speaker 3 (01:25:53):
If you want to interact with the Margo

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