Joanna is the story of a piano (or Joanna in cockney rhyming slang). The story is told by the piano, in the form of a woman in a black dress, who narrates the history of her body.
The show starts with the building of the frame of the piano and the insertion of the hammers, strings etc accompanied by a series of appropriate groans as everything is tensioned. She (the piano) then relates how she is boxed up and shipped to the customer who has bought her.
The show then relocates to the house of a wealthy family in the late 19th century where Joanna is to be played by the daughter Catherine at her debut recital. The drama unfolds as Catherine at first plays well but mechanically. However under the tender tutelage of her teacher Simon,she learns to play with passion and fire. The ending of this drama as the pair are seperated and Catherine must marry another is beautifully played out on stage.
The piece then move forward to 1919, and Joanna has been moved downstairs to the movie theatre where we see the new player, Aggie, playing with fear and trepidation, but Aggie soon learns how to make the piano sing only when tragedy strikes.
The third act sees the action move to the middle of The Blitz and Joanna is used by Aggie to maintain morale during a long terrible night while possibly creating a legendary tale.
The coda of the piece is possibly the saddest part as we move into the modern throw-away age where age is not respected and the tip is the final resting place for many a once-venerated item.
This show really got to me emotionally, possibly because I have treated many of my old instruments badly (I did one sit on a trumpet and got a sideways Dizzy Gillespie but it never forgave me). The girl narrating the part of Joanna kept her dialogue going throughout the entire show with barely a pause for breath and the story kept the audience enraptured. It reminded me a little of the movie The Red Violin except there was no magic apart from that which is contained in all music. Excellent play but if you are susceptible to a well told romance, you may cry a little near the end.
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