Fences (August Wilson Century Cycle)

Had to read this play for a class and it was actually phenomenal. August Wilson does a great job with this one. Who knows- I might just read some of his other plays.

"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.

Fantastic book and quick delivery.

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