In a world of Lady Gaga and 3-D blue-hued Avatars, South Coast Repertory’s production of August Wilson’s “Fences” is a beacon of artistic excellence. The story orbits the off-center world of Troy Maxson, a restless trash-collector and former Negro league baseball star.
The play is set during the 1957 season when Hank Aaron led the Milwaukee Braves to the World Series—and when Aaron demonstrated that blacks not only could compete with white ballplayers, but they could excel against them. Unlike Aaron, Maxson no longer has the safety of his baseball diamond or the simplicity of its rules. Symbols of his torment are found everywhere on the set: the worn down house, the incomplete fence and the makeshift baseball tied to a tree branch. The performance of Charlie Robinson (Mac of “Night Court” fame) as Maxson is breathtaking. Every bit Robinson’s acting equal, Juanita Jennings (“Meet the Browns”) plays Maxson’s long-suffering wife, Rose.
Maxson’s struggle to raise his son forms the nexus of much of the story.
Wilson was a truly gifted writer. So much so that, at the age of 16, he was accused of plagiarism when he wrote a sophisticated paper that he was told he could not possibly have written. He was suspended and later dropped out of school, instead electing to educate himself at the local library. His talent later blossomed at the Yale Repertory Theatre and he took it upon himself to write a play about black experiences in America for every decade of the 20th century. He died in 2005 at the age of 60.
Wilson reclaimed “ground for the theater that most people thought had been abandoned,” noted playwright Tony Kushner said.
I agree, as did the entire audience, which rose in a standing ovation to applaud Wilson’s talent and this production.
—Robert Palmer. Reviewer Palmer is a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Irvine and an arts buff.
