By Julia Szabo
Like father, like son: Denzel Washington’s heir Malcolm Washington reveres playwright August Wilson and his importance to all African Americans, calling him “our Shakespeare.” Screening this month at the HIFF is Malcolm Washington’s powerful new film adaptation of The Piano Lesson, Wilson’s thoughtful and startling 1987 play, winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Produced by his father and sister Katia Washington, the film stars Danielle Deadwyler, Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington (Malcolm’s elder brother) as a family redefining the present through the travails of the past. Already, critics are predicting Academy Awards for all involved.
“Although Wilson passed away before I was able to meet him, I first started reading him and working on his material when I was in film school in 2014 to ’16, at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles,” says Washington, who has an MFA in directing from the American Film Institute. “To be honest, August is so clearly in the zeitgeist, as one of the masters of American literature, that I think that understanding of his legacy was always there and, I’m sure, influenced me in many ways. In our community, he’s our Shakespeare: so big that everybody in Black film and entertainment has talked about August for so long, it’s like never remembering how you met your uncle. Interpreting his work comes from a very personal place for me.”
When it came to building out the character of Berniece, whose attachment to her late mother’s cherished musical instrument anchors the story, all the Washingtons were thrilled to welcome Deadwyler aboard. “I’d wanted to work with Danielle for a long time,” says the director, “and from our first conversation, we were speaking the same language and had so much shared trust. We became really close kindred spirits. It’s been such a wonderful journey to go on with her, and she’s become a really close collaborator of mine.” As for working with the great Jackson, “In this movie, he got to flex a different muscle than we usually see,” says Washington. “He’s as closely connected to this material as anybody on Earth.”
This beautifully crafted production offers a prescription for turbulent times that only art can provide. “I think in any creative endeavor, or any endeavor with a group of people, you want to establish a shared trust and communication as quickly as possible, to create an environment that garners the respect necessary to speak truth,” the director says. “Everybody fell in line with that way of working. The movie we made is about community, family, a coming together, and I think it really shines through.”
The Piano Lesson screens on October 5 at 2:30PM at the East Hampton Middle School, and on October 11 at 8PM at Sag Harbor Cinema.