30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #19 "Fences" by August Wilson

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #19

Fences by August Wilson

The first play assigned for my Script Analysis class at Boston University was August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, which still stands as one of my favorite contemporary plays, and a play that really opened my eyes. Growing up a little white boy in a very white town, I certainly had a great deal to learn. 

Over the years, many of Mr. Wilson's plays, but, for whatever reason, I had never read Fences until today. The play premiered at Yale Rep in 1985, and moved to Broadway in 1987 with nearly the same cast (including the likes of the great James Earl Jones, Courtney B. Vance, and Mary Alice) and still directed by Lloyd Richards, who writes the introduction for the edition of the play I own, and who was a truly wonderful theater artist (he was a guest professor at Bennington my senior year, but I didn't have a class with him, sadly). The play ran for over 500 performances, won the Pulitzer and a Tony for Best Play (Richards, Jones, and Alice all won Tonys, too). 

Fences is the sixth play in what is called Wilson's "Pittsburgh Cycle", and is set in the 1950s at the beginning of the play. The epigraph from my edition:

"When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in his Largeness and Laws"
----August Wilson

And indeed, this play is very much about the sins of our fathers. It is also about forgiveness. These days, it is hard not to use the phrase "toxic masculinity," as, in all honesty, that seems to be protagonist Troy Maxson's tragic downfall. It is about what is inherited, and what we can rise above. Troy Maxon left his abusive father at the age of 14, spent time in jail, then did his best to shake away the sins of his father and start a life with Rose, who knows his faults but does her best to look deeper--- though she is too strong a character to be a made fool of. Troy has his family, and wants to take care of them the best he can, vehemently taking responsibility like he believes a man ought to. But there is that place inside of him, the same place where his stories come from, that is a kind of dark and bitterness. The man who could have played baseball, but felt it was denied him, so he denies his son a chance at any sports scholarship. The man who admits his wife is the best woman he could ever hope for, but who also indulges on the side, and feels little guilt for it.  Troy is a complex character who is often not very likeable--- mainly because we all know such contradictions honestly exist in every human.

Viola Davis, who starred with Denzel Washington in the film adaptation of the play, said of August Wilson's writing: "He captures our humor, our vulnerabilities, our tragedies, our trauma. And he humanizes us. And he allows us to talk."  Washington, for his part, has been very involved in bringing Wilson's plays to the screen, saying, "The greatest part of what's left of my career is making sure that August is taken care of."

Fences is  a quick read because Wilson is a great storyteller, and it is also lyrical, because he is a poet. There is no question we lost a giant when he passed in 2005 at the age of 60. But talk about a legacy he left behind.