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The first couple of paragraphs of this review have been used as introduction to other August Wilson Century Cycle plays as well.
Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.
Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.
The action of this play takes place in the mid-1950's in a black neighborhood in Pittsburgh (Wilson's home town) as do most of the plays in the cycle. This is the sixth play in the cycle and the first to reflect that notion that some profound changes were in the offing for black people, not all of them good and not all for the better. Both these facts are important in understanding the tensions of the play. Although Wilson's plays are almost exclusively centered in black life as it is lived in the neighborhood the various trials and tribulations of blacks elsewhere are woven into his story line. The white world, for the most part, except as represented by amorphous outside forces that have the access and control of the resources that blacks need to survive and break out of racial isolation are on the sidelines here. And that is as it should be in these plays on the black experience. Moreover, this truly reflects how it has been (and how it still is, notwithstanding the Obamaid) in that outer world.
I labelled this entry with the headline "Better Days Are Coming?" purposefully including the question mark. Surely, some progress toward the goal of racial equality, if not nearly enough, has been made over the last half century since the time period of this play. That is not the question. The real question is posed by the main character, Troy Maxton, who in his time was something of an exceptional baseball player, but who "came too early" to have it change the fortunes of his life. His reply: "ain't nothing should have ever been too early". Wilson hits the nail on the head here. After that remark nothing else really needs to be said.
Wilson's conceptual framework, as I have mentioned previously in a review of his "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", is impeccable. Placing the scene in 1950's Pittsburgh permits him to give a bird's eye view of that great migration of blacks out of the South in the post-World War II period at a time when they are shaking off those old subservient southern roots. Wilson is also able to succinctly draw in the questions of white racism (obliquely here), black self-help (as in building that damn fence) , black hatred of whites, black self-hatred, black illusion (that the `lifting' of the white boats was going to end, for blacks, the seemingly permanent Great Depression), black pride (through the link with past black historical figures and with the then current hero, Jackie Robinson, although Troy has some cutting remarks on the status of that figure), the influence of the black church (good or bad), black folk wisdom (as portrayed by Jim Bono, who is more grounded in his memories of his southern roots than the others) and, in the end, the rage just below the surface of black existence (as portrayed here by Troy's brother Gabriel's, a character who epitomizes one of the tragic aspects of black male existence) resulting from a world that not was not made by the characters in this play but took no notice of their long suppressed rage that turned in on itself.
Unlike some of the earlier play, however, there is a little ray of hope in the character of Troy's son (by his wife Rose) Cory whose struggle for his own identity with his father and the world is a sub-theme here. As always, if you get a chance go see this play but, please, at least read it. Read the whole cycle.
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"Fences" Overview
Drama / 5m, 2f / 1 Set Winner of the New York Drama Critic's and Tony Awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize, this sensational drama starred James Earl Jones as Troy Maxson, a former star of the Negro baseball leagues who now works as a garbage man in 1957 Pittsburgh. Excluded as a Negro from the major leagues during his prime, Troy's bitterness takes it's toll on his relationships with both his wife and son who now wants his own chance to play. "One of the great characters in American drama." - The New York Post "One of the richest experiences I have ever had in the theatre. I wasn't just moved. I was transfixed." - The New York Post "A blockbuster and a major American play." - New York Daily News
Customer Reviews
very intriguing read - Rebecca Hatten - Birmingham, AL
I enjoyed this classic screenplay - it says so much from the male perspective and showcases a woman's strength.
american classic - K. Hulka - Jersey City, NJ United States
Originally read this in college and now jumped at the chance to re-read it before going to see it on Broadway with Denzel Washington.
Fencing Out Mr. Death - John F. Rooney -
"Fences" (1987) is part of August Wilson's ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, set in the 1950's. I have never seen one of his plays performed so I am at a distinct disadvantage in being able to judge this or other Wilson plays. On Broadway this play starred the bigger-than-life actor James Earl Jones as Troy Maxson, a bigger-than-life character. He's an unsympathetic man, an ex-con, a garbage collector who gets himself promoted to a driver; he's faithless to his loving and faithful wife; he's a blowhard, a taker, and ungiving (coldblooded) to his son Cory. He always thought he could have been a professional athlete which may be one of his pipe-dreams. His son wants to play ball, and scouts are interested in him, but Troy is too selfish to give the boy a chance.
He has taken advantage of his brother Gabriel who wears a steel plate. Troy took part of the brother's compensation in order to buy his own house. And though not playing with a full deck, Gabriel is a Wilsonian prophetic character of a kind seen in his other plays. Troy is so full of himself that there's no room there for others. His son, Lyons, by a previous marriage is looking for handouts, and when he does offer to pay back borrowed money Troy, the ornery one, refuses to accept it.
In some ways it is akin to a tragedy, almost like Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," but the play doesn't quite reach the real eloquence or heightened language to take it into the realm of Miller's universal drama. Rose's long final speech to her son Cory about her husband Troy reaches dramatic and eloquent heights that, I think, are worthy of our best playwrights.
The protagonist is not heroic, nor was Willy Loman, but Loman's plight was framed in a larger dramatic context than the man himself and seemed to say something more holistic about the American dream and experience.
Wilson is painting a picture here of one specific man and of his particular family, not attempting larger implications or universal metaphors.
Wilson was a born story-teller who used details and incidents tellingly. His milieu was the Afro-American experience, the American black man in a white world. Flashes of humor enliven his plays. Troy talks a lot about death: Wilson does not shy away from serious topics. Troy battles Mr. Death by trying to fence him out. Troy's son defied his father just as Troy defied his father. But at the end Cory sings his father's song. This is a play that merits more than one reading.
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