"Fences" was one of August Wilson's ten-part cycle of plays detailing the African American experience of the 20th century, but the story it tells and the characters it showcases resonate well into the future.
This powerful, Pulitzer Prize-winning play is made up of a series of scenes that all take place on the front porch of one African-American family's home in Pittsburgh in 1957. The father, Troy (John Beasley), is a garbage man who used to be a star in the Negro baseball league, but just missed the integration of Major League Baseball by a few years.
Troy, with his frustrated dreams and paradoxical desires, is perhaps the most interesting character in the show. Despite his love for baseball, Troy wants his son to stop playing the sport and start working harder at the local grocery store so he can get a job there after high school and have some stability. Troy claims his greatest responsibility is to provide for his family, but he buys his house with his brother's money and makes a number of questionable choices concerning the sustained happiness of his home.
Troy's family includes his wife Rose (Crystal Fox) and their son Cory (Warner Miller). A few other characters also make appearances during the show, including Troy's adult son by another woman, Lyons (Brandon J. Dirden), Troy's best friend Bono (Eugene Lee) and Troy's brother Gabriel (Bill Nunn). Gabriel sustained brain damage while fighting in the Vietnam War and now believes he is the angel Gabriel. He wanders around the neighborhood with a trumpet; another character who desperately wants to be something greater than what he actually is.
The small cast works to the play's advantage, because each character is so well-crafted and each has a generous amount of stage time so the audience is able to fully appreciate the cast's talent and the play's beauty.
Though many of the specific problems the characters face are exclusive to the African-American community in the 1950s, the show is not at all alienating. There are issues that anyone, black or white, can find resonance with. Moreover, the humor allows audience members to connect with the story. For example, in the first scene, Troy insists that Rose recount what she told him when he said he wasn't interested in marriage. "If you ain't the marrying kind," she said, "then move aside so the marrying kind can find me." After this line, Troy laughs along with the predominantly white Bostonian audience then adds, "she said, 'stand aside! You're blocking the view!'"
Crystal Fox is particularly compelling as Troy's wife Rose. The consummate matriarch, Rose works hard around the house, is a loving wife and raises her son to the best of her abilities. When Rose and Troy have a confrontation in Act Two, Troy gives the first monologue and delivers it powerfully. But it is Rose's rebuttal that serves as a tipping point for the audience's sympathies with the main characters. Fox plays the no-nonsense wife and mother with expert ease, laughing off Troy's fabricated stories when they're unimportant but taking an uncompromising stance when she sees her family's well-being at stake. Rose is grounded in reality; unlike her husband, she does not allow herself to get caught up in nostalgic daydreams.
Woven throughout the play is a series of effective baseball metaphors that serve to highlight Troy's frustration with his inability to do the things he thinks he should. When Troy's son Corey acts out, Troy tells him that he has just committed one strike
The play is highly suspenseful and extraordinarily well-written. It is a testament to its quality that it is compelling even though the majority of the action takes place as characters stand on the front porch. Each character is relatable but simultaneously conveys the unique problems faced during the time period, and the acting only enhances the show's impact. Take some time out, ride the T down to Copley, and join the characters of "Fences" as they "just [sit] out here on the porch for a while."
