Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502090004
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Dutton, who re-creates his stage role in the August Wilson drama, says theater buffs will see a faithful adaptation. And TV viewers unfamiliar with the play will enjoy a heartfelt good time, vows the former star of Fox's ``Roc.''
``I don't want the perception to be, `This is a heavy drama; brace yourself,''' Dutton says. ``This thing has music, it's entertaining as heck, it's extremely funny.''
The ``Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation'' airs Sunday on CBS (at 9 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7).
``Piano Lesson'' co-stars Alfre Woodard, Carl Gordon, Lou Myers, Tommy Hollis, Rosalyn Coleman - and an elaborately carved piano that is both an heirloom and the heart of a family clash.
The piano, a longtime Charles family treasure, has been stored in the attic of Berniece Charles' (Woodard) Pittsburgh home. Then Boy Willie (Dutton) blows in with a dream: to sell the piano and buy the Mississippi land his family worked as slaves.
To Berniece, the piano is the family's heritage; to Boy Willie, it's the chance for a future.
``Piano Lesson'' is the first of Wilson's plays (which also include ``Fences,'' another Pulitzer-winner) to be filmed. The work has been ``opened up'' visually for film but retains the richness of Wilson's language and the energy of his characters, Dutton says.
Boy Willie is the same man he portrayed on stage - ``a human cyclone,'' the actor says, with the energy contained a bit for the camera.
``I didn't concern myself with trying to discover him anew to fit television,'' Dutton says ``I knew I had something solid in the [stage] portrayal and I didn't want to mess around and try to experiment.
``You can't take it back and say, `I'll get it right at the matinee.'''
Dutton releases a torrent of words to describe Boy Willie: ``Big, broad, gregarious, fun-loving, full of life, full of energy, loud - good-naturedly obnoxious.''
He's also a hard-working man pursuing a dream of independence in Depression-sick America. That goal, Dutton says, is one everybody should be able to appreciate.
The play's characters and its themes draw from the black experience but transcend race, the actor contends.
``I don't call them African-American stories, I call them American stories,'' Dutton says. ``I think August Wilson's plays and works are just as much about white America as they are about black America.
``You're not going to get a better family story than this. I think everybody has a semblance of some aspect of one of these characters in their family - white, black, brown or whatever.''
And there are Wilson's remarkable words. Dutton, asked about his favorite scene, offers a moving Boy Willie speech:
``Many is the time I looked at my daddy and seen him staring off at his hands. I got a little older, and I know just what he was thinking. He's sitting there saying `I got these big old hands, but what I gonna do with them? I can take and build something with these hands, but where's the tools? All I got is these hands.'''
The TV movie allowed for a Broadway family reunion: Gordon, Myers, Hollis and Coleman appeared along with Dutton in the original New York production. Lloyd Richards, Wilson's longtime and respected collaborator, was director of the play and the TV movie.
Part of the delay in bringing the play to TV was Wilson's insistence that Richards - known primarily for his theater work - direct the movie, Dutton says. But the actor is also well aware that TV tends to favor fluffy sitcoms over more substantive black works.
Dutton, who spent three years with ``Roc,'' about a working class family man in Baltimore, came away convinced he and typical TV comedies were not a good fit.
``In hindsight, I was at the wrong bus stop,'' he says. ``I just don't fit in half-hour television. My acting style doesn't fit. My sense of politics doesn't fit. My view of the world doesn't fit.
``If I'm going to be in television, it's to advance civilization in some idealistic way.''
And maybe advance the entertainment industry as well, Dutton says. He's proud of his involvement with ``Piano Lesson'' and with ``Zoo Man,'' a Showtime cable TV movie from another Pulitzer-honored playwright, Charles Fuller. ``Zoo Man'' airs in March.
``I'm hoping it opens up the door to playwrights in general .. . for the industry to look at plays and say, `Hold it: we can transfer a lot of this stuff; it's good language and good storytelling.''
by CNB