The sentence is “Denzel does well.” He does. He didn’t rock my world, but he did well. First of all he is showing up on stage, where he doesn’t have to be. He is working his butt off for two hours, playing a guy who is not winning any popularity contest. And he is bringing people into the theatre who may be coming to see a movie star but will leave thinking about a man and his family.
I’m not that crazy about August Wilson’s writing. I am in overwhelm when I think of the goal that he set for himself – that of creating an archive of black history for the stage – and achieved. I, who am still mincing around with monologues, think this feat is astonishing. The stories – I get them. The characters - I get them. I’m just not nutty about his writing in the same way that I am other authors.
That being said, I found something in this play that I had not noticed before. I read the play again is how I found it. There is a kind of music in Wilson’s writing. When Troy launches into his Friday night rant it is almost opera. It is his aria and nobody better come between him and it. In fact the entire play seems to be Troy’s opera.
Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) is a bitter man with all the required baggage to go with it. He has a case of the walking blues. He missed chance after chance in his life and over time has constructed a story of being buried alive. Fatherhood holds no magic, except that he doesn’t want his children to turn out like him. Love is overrated. Responsibility is what matters, and that he meets out by the teaspoonful. He does not give, he allots: so much to his wife, his sons and his brother, disabled from the Korean War. Troy is wound tight as a clock, and life has no thrill or surprises for him, until suddenly it does. He grabs that brass ring without apology, and his family is left to tidy up. It is Troy’s world and the people in it are satellites. They will accept or reject Troy, but they will never ignore him.
This is a terrific ensemble cast. Although I was uninspired by the direction, which I found dull and cumbersome, this is a cast who is engaged with each other and the story. This hold true especially for Ms. Davis (Rose Maxson) who, although short on lines, never stops watching and listening to the men around her. She is the center of this world, even though her husband would bust himself sideways to deny it. When Troy’s life caves in, it is Rose who steps up. It is also Davis who brings emotion up from the depths of this story again and again. This was a particular choice that was baffling to me. Troy is a cold man who dropped off his emotion back a ways on his life trail, but it is the character’s difficulty we want to see, not the actor’s. It is left to Viola Davis to put the heart into the matter. Seems a little unbalances to me – was it an active choice or just the way things worked out?
Quibble, quibble, quibble. Fences will succeed and bring a healthy audience into the Cort Theatre, which often languishes outside the magic geographic circle that is Broadway. The audiences will be more racially mixed than any other on Broadway, which is also a fine and too rare occurrence. And speaking of which, because of this fact, the play takes on a “Call and Response” mode that I bet the actors love. This audience reacts vocally when characters please or displease. It is something the actors were not yet accustomed to when I saw this show in previews but let’s hope they get the hang of riding the audience’s reactions.
Everyone is going to the altar and paying homage. The palm fronds have been laid out on the road. This is the sort of reception that Ragtime deserved but never got. Fences is not theatre that takes your breath away, but it’s pretty good and will be made to seem even better because of all the buzz. Its myth will become greater than the sum of its parts. That’s showbiz.
FENCES By August Wilson; directed by Kenny Leon
WITH: Denzel Washington (Troy Maxson), Viola Davis (Rose), Chris Chalk (Cory), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Jim Bono), Russell Hornsby (Lyons), Mykelti Williamson (Gabriel) and Eden Duncan-Smith and SaCha Stewart-Coleman (Raynell).
Original music by Branford Marsalis; sets by Santo Loquasto; costumes by Constanza Romero; lighting by Brian MacDevitt; sound by Acme Sound Partners; associate producer, Ms. Romero. Presented by Carole Shorenstein Hays and Scott Rudin. At the Cort Theater, 138 West 48th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Through July 11. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.
