THE PIANO LESSON

For this production the sound design is minimalist and actor-driven. The supernatural is felt, not shown: the ghost lives in the rattle of the house, while the family’s own music (boogie, blues and the Parchman work song “Berta, Berta”) carries the warmth of the living and the ancestors. The arc moves from a cold, still dawn through accumulating dread to the exorcism at the keys, the distant Yellow Dog train and a warm ancestral release.