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Fences
By August Wilson
Directed by Ron OJ Parson
At Court Theatre
5535 S. Ellis
Chicago, IL
Call 773-753-4472, tickets $27 - $50
Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7:30 PM
Fridays at 8PM
Saturdays at 3 & 8 PM
Sundays at 2:30 & 7:30 PM
Running time is 2 hrs, 40 min with intermission
Through February 19, 2006
"Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner."
"You got to take the crookeds with the straights. That's what Papa used to say."
"Some people build fences to keep people out and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you."
“You can't visit the sins of the father upon the child."
--Quotes from Fences
Fences is brilliant August Wilson fare
Court Theatre specializes is producing classic theatre and August Wilson (born Frederick August Kittel,1945-2005)’s Fences, his most popular play (525 performances on Broadway), qualifies as classic despite its 1985 vintage. it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985.
Fences is a brilliant play that captures the Black urban dialect that Wilson turns into fluid dialogue that presents as poetic and lyrical. Wilson, a master storyteller, presents the voice of the common urban Black man found on back porches, in dinners and on street corners. He develops wonderfully full dimensional characters whose struggle to honorably survive the pain of being a Black man in America is passionately pictured in his ten play chronicle of 20th Century American life.
Fences deals with the complications of holding a family together during the changing times of the 1950’s (set in 1957 when Hank Aaron was leading the Milwaukee Braves to the championship), when race issues and personal identity, confusion and the limits of the past conflicts with the hopes of the present. Fences features a realistic backyard set (design by Jack Magaw) complete with three modest houses tightly sandwiched in an urban setting.
Garbage man Troy Maxson (A. C. Smith), a 53 year old married man, harbors bitterness from his cruel childhood where his physically abusive father forced him on the road at age 14 from his Alabama sharecropper farm. After migrating to Pittsburgh, Troy survived by stealing and after taking on a wife and child, he was forced to steal more to preserve his family. When a knife fight gets him shot, he kills and winds up in prison for 15 years. There he learns to play baseball and later becomes a star in the Negro League.
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Too old to make the Major Leagues after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1946, Troy’s anger and bitterness and his duty to his family conflict as he tries to prevent his children from experiencing the pain and disappointment he has endured by dashing their hopes and dreams with cold hard practical reality as he sees it. Troy keeps his loved ones out of his life by negating and forbidding them their attempts to advance in life. The picket fence he builds in his yard is his metaphor for shutting out hopes but to his wife Rose (Jaqueline Williams), the new fences is her attempt to keep the family together, safe in their own space.
We meet Troy and his pal Bono (John Steven Crowley) as they have a taste of gin on a Friday evening after a grueling week of work. Troy is telling another vivid Uncle Remus story about his encounter with death. This funny mythical saga has Troy fighting with death and has him winning and thus appearing fearless and immortal. Rose bluntly states that he was delusional since he had pneumonia at the time. We see how Troy developed the ability to kid himself and distort his experience in an attempt to dull his pain. He is determined to pass on his protection to his sons.
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Therefore he mocks his son Lyon’s (Rolando A. Boyce) desire to be a jazz musician and he forbids his youngest son, Cory to play football if it means quitting his job at the A & P food store. Troy preaches the practical wisdom of settling for a safe occupation in stead of reaching for your dreams through your talent. Passing on the sins and bitterness of the father to the sons that carries the weight of limiting the present with the baggage of the past is a theme Wilson poignantly presents in his work.
Troy is a tragic-hero who, on one hand, honorably toils to preserve and shelter his family the best way he can, and on the other, kills the dream in his sons as he tries to shield them from the pain he has encountered in racists America. We witness the conflict in the way one generation sees the past and the future. The older folks fear change, the younger optimistically anticipate it.
We see Rose, played as a strong supportive mate by the excellent Jaqueline Williams, as she attempts to level out Troy’s anger. The youngest son, Cory (Anthony Fleming, III) wants to take a college football scholarship but fears the wrath of his controlling father who refuses to sign the college application. Add Troy’s guilt for using some of his brain damaged brother’s government money to buy his home plus his infidelity and Troy is full of regret and frustration. He is a complicated man and tragic hero. A. C. Smith, as Troy, is powerful, commanding with funny moments and deep vulnerability. His seething rage erupts with a marvelous intensity that is realistic and haunting. Smith is tremendous here giving one of the finest performances seen on stage here in years.
Anthony Fleming, III gave Cory the youthful energy necessary and Victor J. Cole played Gabriel, Troy’s mentally handicapped brother authentically. His improvisational dance to get the gates of heaven opened for Troy at the plays end was dramatic and symbolic of his African roots.
Fences is a modern classic American play that explores boundaries families face as the children’s hope for the future are balanced with the limits of race, culture and class. Our ‘fences’ either become limiting forces or gate ways to success. Wilson marvelously shows us how the Blacks in the 1950’s America struggled with their fences.
Director Ron OJ Parson has mounted a fabulous work that pays homage to Wilson’s masterpiece. I was moved by the power of this piece. Be sure to get to Court Theatre to experience one of the finest plays of our time.
Not To Be Missed
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
This play is eligible for a C.S.T. Equity Theatre Award
Talk Theatre in Chicago Radio Show
January 21, 2006
CHRONOLOGY OF WILSON'S PLAYS
In 2005, August Wilson completed a ten-play cycle, nine of which are set in Pittsburgh, chronicling the African American experience in the 20th Century:
1900s – Gem of the Ocean (2003)
1910s – Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1984)
1920s – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982) – set in Chicago
1930s – The Piano Lesson (1986) – Pulitzer Prize
1940s – Seven Guitars (1995)
1950s – Fences (1985) – Pulitzer Prize
1960s – Two Trains Running (1990)
1970s – Jitney (1982)
1980s – King Hedley II (2001)
1990s – Radio Golf (2005)
"I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. I'm not sure what it means, other than life is hard."
August Wilson, 1945 - 2005
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