The Piano Lesson

Although it did take a little longer, I liked the length of "The Piano Lesson," because I felt like I really got to learn more about the characters. I was thinking about what how in plays one of the problems is giving each character their own style of talking, or something that makes them a little different without overplaying it. I think Wilson did that really well because at some points I was able to read it without looking at the names, and I still knew who was talking. I feel like this is one I'd like to see in a theatre, though, rather than read. Especially towards the end - Berniece's song would probably be an amazing climaxing point, but I don't get the same effect when I'm reading it. Through the whole play I thought it was going to be Boy Willie playing the piano and feeling the spirits of his family and realizing he couldn't sell it.
I also liked the longer speeches that sometimes had more meaning than just what was going on in the play. Doaker's monologue on page 1195, just sounds like an old man rambling, but there's actually something else there.
"They got so many trains out there they have a hard time keeping them from running into each other. Got trains going every whichaway. Got people on all of them. Somebody going where somebody just left. If everybody stay in one place I believe this would be a better world. Now what I done learned after twent-seven years of railroading is this...if the train stays on the track...it's going to get where it's going. It might not be where you going. If it ain't then all you got to do is sit and wait cause the train's coming back to get you . The train don't never stop. It'll come back every time."
And then Boy Willie cuts him off to ask what he's cooking - I just thought that was really a good way to show both of their characters without having to say, "Doaker is a very thoughtful kind of person, and Boy Willie is much more in the present and doesn't want to hear about anything in-depth."