The Piano Teacher

Vintage Theatre Productions: Sept.16-Oct. 16

               Jennifer McCray Rincon

Elderly Mrs. K. was a piano teacher for thirty years.  Now she's having issues remembering things and has fallen in love with life’s small indulgences, such as candy and cookies.  She even offers them to us as audience. 

It’s a little uncertain whether Mrs. K. is consciously reminiscing or dreaming. The story she tells us as audience, begins with her waking from a moment of dozing in her chair, and ends with her falling back asleep at final curtain. Confessing that her favorite tv program is Dancing with the Stars, her vagaries and reminiscences take the form of disjointed memories about her piano students of the past. 

     Mrs. K. is lonely, and at one point begins to call her old students. Two of them visit her. Are they real or hallucinations? You decide. One, Mary, whom she has called, shows up for a brief visit. Michael, whom she hadn't called, also visits her, saying he had called her, but she doesn’t remember it. 

     Then there's the question of Mrs. K’s late husband, who, back in the day, was always in the kitchen with the children when they arrived and were awaiting the appointed time for their piano lessons. According to Mrs. K.’s monologue, he had suffered greatly in a war in another country. 

     Some shows of this nature ‘bludgeon the choir’ with too much information, making the audience feel as though they're being patronized. This is the opposite. It leaves esoteric clues, while expecting the audience to suss out the crux of the situation on their own.

Although Vintage Theatre’s production is blessed with good acting and direction, Julia Cho’s script is rather obtuse.

Director Dwayne Carrington elicits fine performances from Jennifer McCray Rincon as Mrs. K, Bobby Bennett as Michael and Cheryl Sarkaria as Mary. 

Go and see if you can solve this mystery.

For tickets call: 303-856-7830 or go online at www.vintagetheatre.org

Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St., Aurora 80010