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Some losses remain with us: impossible mourning and the prevalence of ritual in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson.(Essay)
Jermaine Singleton
Some Losses Remain with US: Impossible Mourning and the Prevelence of Ritual
in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson
Despite psychoanalytic criticism's universalizing, ahistorical, and imperialist inclinations, it nevertheless can prove indispensable for understanding The Piano Lesson's representation of post-emancipation African America's unclaimed cultural inheritance. This is the argument "Some Losses Remain with Us" makes as it puts psychoanalytic theorizations of Sigmund Freud's concept of melancholia and Jacques Derrida's post-structuralist reading of Karl Marx's work on specters in conversation with Wilson's play to uncover a paradigm for understanding a cultural melancholy. Wilson's play reveals how hidden affect is sustained as a result of and in resistance to an enduring struggle with racial oppression. In doing so, the play stages parallel trajectories of psychological restriction sustained by post-Emancipation black men and women through ritual practice as they struggle for inclusion in a segregationist society that has historically subjugated them.
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From slavery we have sublimated our feeling about white people. We have fought for our rights while hiding our feeling towards whites who tenaciously denied us those rights. We have even, I suspect, hidden those feeling from ourselves. It is how we have survived. Black folk of my time talk about white people and their predilections at least once daily. But never talk about or with anger. It seems unnatural. Where have we stored the pain and et what price? (Robinson 1998, 4)
Randall Robinson's observations in Defending the Spirit provide a corner-stone for the discussion of racial subjugation, resistance, and buried social memory throughout this essay. In addition to recognizing the hidden affect that claims a people subject to an enduring racial oppression, he attributes the unacknowledged claims of these repressed feelings to the social body's will to survive. Moreover, he invites us to explore more critically the price unclaimed pain exacts. In what follows, I take up Robinson's critical invitation by exploring August Wilson's rendering of the legacy of African America's disremembered past under racial slavery in The Piano Lesson (1990).
- 'PIANO LESSON' IS ROUGH, BUT MEMORABLE
- Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe Kevin Kelly, Globe Staff January 14, 1988 700+ words
THE PIANO LESSON -- Play in two acts by August Wilson...black experience in America, "The Piano Lesson" has yet to find the hard finish of...hopeful. Yet, at this stage, "The Piano Lesson" is badly out of tune. Wilson intends...
- The Piano Lesson
- Newspaper article from: Windy City Times Morgan, Scott C May 27, 2009 700+ words
THEATER REVIEW The Piano Lesson Playwright: August Wilson At...August Wilson's 1990 drama The Piano Lesson serves as a vital reminder of how...lives in the 20th century. The Piano Lesson shows members of the Charles family...
- A.V. GETS A PIANO LESSON.(NEWS)
- Newspaper article from: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA) November 7, 1997 700+ words
...Goins directs Wilson's ``The Piano Lesson,'' which opens Cedar Street Theatre...Lancaster Performing Arts Center. ``The Piano Lesson'' explores a Depression era family...his most recent work. ``The Piano Lesson'' set is sparse, and the actors have...
- `THE PIANO LESSON' THE REP'S MADISON PREMIERE OF PLAY WILL OPEN...
- Newspaper article from: The Capital Times (Madison, WI) Lynch, Kevin March 3, 2004 700+ words
...story, August Wilson's play "The Piano Lesson" creeps up on you. There's little...will open the Madison premiere of "The Piano Lesson" at 8 p.m. Friday, with a run through...Gardiner, who is guest-directing "The Piano Lesson," compares it to the work of Tennessee...
- `The Piano Lesson' strikes sharp notes on black history
- Newspaper article from: Chicago Sun-Times Joe Pixler January 13, 1989 700+ words
...latest tale of black Americana, "The Piano Lesson," will open at the Goodman Theatre...Huntington Theatre in Boston, where "The Piano Lesson" was produced recently, are quoted...together the Chicago debut of "The Piano Lesson" and the occurrence of Martin Luther...
- THE LESSONS OF THE CENTURY AUGUST WILSON'S 'THE PIANO LESSON' IS HIS TAKE ON...
- Newspaper article from: Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI) Henry, Amanda March 5, 2004 700+ words
...and crew of its production of "The Piano Lesson," which opens today. D.J. Howard...Theatre Company, which chose "The Piano Lesson" for its inaugural production in 2000...American experience that includes "The Piano Lesson" (see accompanying story) is one...
- Playwright adapts 'The Piano Lesson' for CBS' 'Hallmark Hall of Fame'....
- Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Dawidziak, Mark February 1, 1995 700+ words
...Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ``The Piano Lesson,'' learned his greatest writing lessons...scholarship), the second for ``The Piano Lesson,'' which he has adapted for ``The...opportunity.'' CBS will air ``The Piano Lesson'' Sunday night (Feb. 5) at 9 Eastern...
- 'PIANO LESSON' PLAYS WELL AS A FAMILY HISTORY.(Living Today)
- Newspaper article from: Albany Times Union (Albany, NY) April 19, 1990 700+ words
...beginning of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." It's a haunting tune that makes...and present are the subjects of "The Piano Lesson," a mesmerizing history of one black...last week and deservedly so. "The Piano Lesson," which opened Monday at Broadway...
