With The Piano Lesson, It’s Danielle Deadwyler’s Time. Finally.

What’s Good? Danielle Deadwyler. But you already knew that. This is the only time in this column’s history in which I am writing about the same performer twice. The last time I offered up my words at the altar of Deadwyler’s excellence, it was for her work as Miranda in Station Eleven and Cuffee in The Harder They Fall. Two years ago, I wrote that “Deadwyler has emerged as one of the most exciting talents in the game. It’s not easy to stand out in an ensemble cast, especially as a Black actress, but Deadwyler continues to.” In The Piano Lesson, she’s at it again, stealing scenes in a stacked cast and delivering another performance that should have the Academy on its knees in admiration. 

Who It’s Good For: If there was ever a time for August Wilson’s work, it’s now. Wilson wrote plays about Black America for Black America. Sure, he often talked about how his plays might land with white people, and that they could help make them see Black Americans differently, but there was no mistaking the fact that Wilson devoted his craft to telling stories of working class Black folks in Pittsburgh (The “Century Cycle” or “Pittsburgh Cycle” are what his now-famous 10 Pittsburgh-set plays are referred to), the city where he was born and raised and continued to pay tribute to until his death in 2005. Wilson’s Pulitzer-prize winning writing is challenging, evocative, steeped in history and committed to honoring his ancestors. It stands in stark contrast to the anti-literacy, anti-history, anti-truth agenda of the incoming U.S. administration. August Wilson’s work needs to be preserved and protected, fought for like its existence is imperative to upholding the fabric of a country and filling in the gaps of Black humanity so much of the pop culture of the 20th century leaves out, because it is. 

To answer who August Wilson’s work is for is to ask who is art for? Who is language for? Who is spirituality for? His words crack open the soul of humanity and ask: What is legacy? What does it mean to be alive? To LIVE? And how do the weeds of America’s past cling to its present and future? August Wilson’s work can be summed up by the James Baldwin quote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read… Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are,” Baldwin said. He was referencing Dostoevsky and Dickens but the same could be said about Wilson. 

In The Piano Lesson, the “doom and glory” Wilson reveals is through a Black family in Pittsburgh in 1936. Deadwyler plays Berniece, a woman haunted by her ancestral past and the piano her father “stole” from the white man whose family enslaved him — specifically, it’s the ghost of said white man lurking upstairs. Berniece’s brother Boy Willie (Malcolm Washington finally living up to the expectations of his last name) wants to sell the piano. Berniece refuses. From there, a story of progress vs. preservation, North vs. South (with commentary on the Great Migration), ownership vs. freedom, faith vs skepticism, and legacy vs. oppression unfolds. The play (which was revived on Broadway in 2022 with most of the same cast) is dense, talk-heavy, and riveting, pulling no punches with its explorations of grief, sacrifice, and success. To Berniece, the piano symbolizes her ancestor’s perseverance, their faces carved into its word. To Boy Willie, it signifies opportunity. He wants to sell it to buy land, the same land his ancestors were enslaved on. The Piano Lesson acts as an allegory for the Black American journey and first-time director Malcolm Washington takes it from stage to screen beautifully. It may be for us, but the privilege to witness this masterpiece is for everyone. 

It takes a special kind of actor to take Wilson’s writing and elevate it. Viola Davis did it with Fences. Danielle Deadwyler does the same in The Piano Lesson. The comparison to Davis’s Oscar-winning performance isn’t hyperbole, and neither is the assertion that Deadwyler is even better. Yeah, I said it. No disrespect to the GOAT Viola Davis but the best female character Wilson ever wrote is Berniece and Deadwyler rises to the challenge of the material. 

In a recent interview with ELLE, Deadwyler said, “when other women see me on screen, I hope they see the dynamism of their experience, the challenges, the difficulties, the beauty, the confusion, the searching,” she continued. “I hope they see the searching, that’s the realest thing.” In The Piano Lesson, Berniece is searching for peace, haunted by the spirits of her ancestors and riddled with the grief of losing the man she loved. She’s searching for ancestral connection by safeguarding their past — at least that’s what she thinks is the way to protect their history. She’s stubborn, strong-willed and unwavering yet cripplingly afraid. She’s self-aware enough to know how the world sees her as a single mother, yet unsure how to move forward for her family and her daughter. After the death of her husband Crawley, Berniece isn’t able to move on, despite dating Avery (the always-enigmatic Corey Hawkins). “You trying to tell me a woman can’t be nothing without a man. But you alright, huh? You can just walk out of here without me—without a woman—and still be a man,” Berniece says to Avery and Deadwyler delivers these lines set in the 1930s with the knowledge and conviction to honor their present-day relevance. “That’s alright. Ain’t nobody gonna ask you, “Avery, who you got to love you?’’ That’s alright for you. But everybody gonna be worried about Berniece,” she says. 

It’s in scenes like this that Deadwyler takes over, commanding space that Black women of the era weren’t supposed to, and demanding recognition through her artistry, daring awarding bodies not to notice. I know, I know, a transcendent performance like this shouldn’t have to be validated by an awards system that we know is rigged against Black women. But also, Danielle Deadwyler fucking deserves. I’m tired of making Black actresses wait decades into their career  (see: Aunjanue Ellis) to be deemed great by the institutions that directly impact their careers. It’s time to start awarding Black actresses when they deliver a performance worthy of praise. Period. 

After Deadwyler’s starring turn in Till in 2022, I wrote that in the film she was “teetering on the brink of giving into her grief throughout, eyes teary and rage simmering” and that the performance was “gripping” and “devastating.” Deadwyler was shut out of most of the major award show nominations (except for the NAACP Image Awards which should, in my opinion, hold as much weight as an Oscar — unfortunately, in Hollywood, it does not). In The Piano Lesson, grief is also sitting at the surface of every sentence Berniece utters. And when she lets the rage out, it’s electrifying. The Piano Lesson propels Deadwyler into the rarified air of actresses who are so good that they can do anything. From Miranda in Station Eleven to Cuffee in The Harder They Fall to Mamie Till-Mobley and now Berniece, Deadwyler has proved she has innate talent that most of her peers would kill for and that when it comes to her range, she’s peerless. When The Piano Lesson opened at TIFF, Deadwyler was also premiering a small Canadian film called 40 Acres (yet to be acquired and released) where she plays a woman defending her family and their farm against cannibals in a post-apocalyptic world. She’s so good in it I wanted to throw popcorn at the screen (in lieu of a shoe) in admiration. Whether it’s an intimate indie or a heavyweight awards contender, if Deadwyler is on screen, I will be seated. 

Awards season is in full swing. Deadwyler is on the cover of magazines and hitting red carpets in her campaign for the recognition she is owed. It’s about time, but whether these institutions do right by Deadwyler this season or not, it’s clear she’s going to be leaving us breathless by her brilliance for decades to come. She’s a once in a generation kind of talent and I’m so grateful to get to watch her work. It’s that good. 

•  Thee Love Island it girls, Serena Paige and JaNa Craig, joining us at Beautycon.
• Megan Thee Stallion reclaiming her narrative, as she should!
• Logging off to protect your peace.
• Brea Baker’s political commentary, especially her latest pieces on the grief and hurt of facing down another Trump presidency and how important it is to refuse to turn on each other.
• Rest. Black women, I’m looking at you. REST.