Review: ‘Fences’
People's Light kicks off their 40th-Anniversary season with a production that's one of the best I've seen in years.
By Jim Rutter
For THE INQUIERER
As someone who grew up with only a sister, plays about brothers (like True West) have never spoken to me. Plays about fathers and sons though? Hoo boy.
Take that comment with the smallest grain of salt when I call People's Light and Theatre Company's staging of August Wilson's Fences one of the best productions I've seen in years.
No small part of their success stems from Wilson's Tony and Pulitzer-Prize winning script, whose conflicts could have constituted three separate plays. Set in 1957, and later, 1965, Fences tells of the extended family of African-American patriarch Troy Maxon (Michael Genet).
A 53-year-old sanitation worker, he rails at the lack of black drivers, risking his position with a resentment held over from playing baseball in the Negro Leagues when the Majors still banned black athletes. Through grueling workweeks, Troy virtuously (and at times, viciously) protects and supports his wife Rose (the exceptional Melanye Finister), their teenage son Cory (Ruffin Prentiss), Cory's half-brother Lyons (Wendell Franklin), and Troy's wounded veteran brother Gabriel (G. Alvarez Reid).
Kamilah Forbes' unflinching direction refuses to sugarcoat any of their struggles nor does she once apologize for the means each uses to solve them. Finister leads an excellent ensemble that also includes Troy's best friend Bono (Brian Anthony Wilson) and a daughter produced by an affair (Cameron Hicks as Raynell).
For nearly three hours I sat riveted, the intensity of the production and Genet's magnificent performance leaving me to wonder after whether I've ever cared this much about my own family. Though the shortest member of the cast, Genet towers over them, thundering as he thumped his chest and terrifying when he threatened. The audience applauded his ethical admonitions (you'd wonder what they'd think of the Adrian Petersen "scandal"), laughed loudly at his oft self-deprecating bravado, sat in silence at his hypocrisy.
And like any father, he both basks and suffers in these contradictions of outwardly loving too little while controlling too much, knowing he harms while trying to do good, and leaving a family that reveres his efforts, chafes at every self-sacrifice redirected back at them, and endures under the long shadow cast over their lives—and this production—that lingers long after he passes.
Fences. Through October 5 at People's Light, 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern. Tickets: $27 to $47. Information: 610-644-3500 or peopleslight.org