Fences tickets are the big ticket of the moment on Broadway, make no mistake about that. Denzel Washington’s Troy Maxson is a complex construction, and one that will remain with those who see it for a long time. The previous star of this production, James Earl Jones, was a more sudden effect (due to his imposing size) but Hollywood’s Denzel brings something else to the stage – deliberation and revelation, of a character’s present as well as his past. Audiences have been described as “diverse” at Fences on Broadway, but there is surely something radical and curious in the minds of them all that unites and illuminates. Fences is, after all, a play about race, about racism and the ways life’s obstacles can drag a great man down. But is Troy Maxson – was Troy Maxson – ever a great man, anyway? Buy Fences tickets and find out.
Fences Broadway is the quintessential August Wilson play, the one in which his protagonist talks about “challenging death to a wrestling match”, the one where an African-American man swings a baseball bat menacingly, live before your eyes. Or does he? The answer is yes and no. It’s all symbolic and somehow ultra-real at the same time. A lot of audience members at Fences shows have probably never witnessed the type of brutality and violence that was an everyday fact of Troy Maxson’s life, much of it self-inflicted, and in this they are assured a realistic glimpse into another world. It is at the very least a glimpse over one’s backyard fence into the raging heart of one’s neighbor. Fences author August Wilson wanted to bring to the world the reality of millions of faceless people, living all over the USA (not just in the prejudiced South) and he succeeded marvelously with Fences.
Tickets have been 100% sold out during the first week of the production. It is a grim curiosity that drives this audience on. With Washington in the title role, we have a strange twist to a bleak drama; the crowd is finding it hard to dislike Denzel, their Denzel, for he is a household name and even a sex symbol. But what he also is is a dangerous and angry man, living life as a nobody in the melee that was 1950s Pittsburgh, and this is something for audiences to sink their teeth into. The set of Fences is subtle artistry, from Santo Loquasto (designer) and Brian MacDevitt (lighting). One could almost liken it to a Hollywood set, such is the accuracy of the objects involved. Set in Maxson’s backyard, there is a tantalizing view into the kitchen, from where a gritty glow emanates and informs us of its owners’ ground-floor budget. The set is worth the price of Fences tickets alone.
Maxson is a former Negro League baseball player, a man who once enjoyed adulation and respect for his skill as an athlete. Washington’s Maxson is an elegant beast, and this adds to the sense of sudden mood swings, and an out of focus grip on life and its economic demands, which is unfortunate for Maxson’s wife and children, with whom he shares a rocky existence. James Earl Jones was Darth Vader but Denzel Washington was Steve Biko – and this difference flavors the current Fences Broadway production; where Jones was a titan, a mountainous muscleman with a lion’s voice, Washington is a wily panther with a telling gleam in his eye, a gleam that tells you to watch the hell out, ‘cos there’s one mean cat around. Viola Davis provides an excellent vision of a shrunken wife, worn down by years of pain and anger, and her part in this is to bring a near-silent but immovable object. She’s obviously made the decision to stick around, and as their life conditions unroll it is easy to see that she has no choice. I don’t want to spoil it for you if you are shopping for Fences on Broadway tickets, but suffice it to say that Fences tickets are a passport into a world where people have been made smaller than they should be, where spreading one’s wings might mean violence rather than flight. Come to see Fences on Broadway and wallow in the gray moonlight where there is no gray area, there is only the stark reality of Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the 1950s. Absolutely gripping and not to be missed.
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