The Piano Lesson By August Wilson – Winning Boy Monologue

WINNING BOY

Context: The Wining boy grieves for his repetitive, narrow lifestyle of being a musician. WINING BOY : I give that piano up. That was the best thing that ever happened to me, getting rid of that piano. That piano got so big and I‘m carrying it around on my back. I don‘t wish that on nobody. See, you think it‘s all fun being a recording star. Got to carrying that piano around and man did I get slow. Got just like molasses. The world just slipping by me and I‘m walking around with that piano. Alright. Now, there ain‘t but so may places you can go. Only so many road wide enough for you and that piano. And that piano get heavier and heavier. Go to a place and they find out you play piano, the first thing they want to do is give you a rink, find you a piano, and sit you right down. And that‘s where you gonna be for the next eight hours. They ain‘t gonna let you get up! Now, the first three or four hours of that is fun. You can‘t get enough whiskey and you can‘t get enough women and you don‘t never get tired of playing that piano. But that only last so long. You look up one day and hate the whiskey, and you hate the women, and you hate the piano. But that‘s all you got. You can‘t do nothing else. All you know how to do is play that piano. Now, who am I? Am I me? Or am I the piano player? Sometime it seem like the only thing to do is shoot the piano player cause he the cause of all the trouble I‘m having.