| Fences - Opens January 12 |
|
Info / Reserve seating: 215-247-8881 (Menu option 1)
NOTE: The SATURDAY 1/27 Performance is now SOLD OUT. NO ADDITIONAL PHONE OR ONLINE RESERVATIONS WILL BE HONORED.
Fences is probably the most famous play in August Wilson’s ten-play cycle chronicling the African-American experience, decade-by-decade, in the twentieth century. Set in the late nineteen-fifties and spanning into the mid-sixties, Fences tells the story of Troy Maxson, a man who could have been a Jackie Robinson, but ended up a trash collector.
Troy has struggled throughout his life, but has had no chance of realizing his aspiration of being a major league ballplayer. He was born just too early to benefit from the civil rights movement and the changes it wrought. The action takes place in Pittsburgh, where Troy, like so much of his generation, has migrated to escape the Jim Crow horrors of the South. He tries to do right by his family and closest friends, but in the face of many crushed dreams he takes out his anger and frustrations on those he loves most; figuratively (and literally) building fences that separate them from him. Fences is at once poetic and real, comedic and dramatic, literally crackling in mid-air. Its characters are deeply human, funny, and desperately moving. “They jump off the page”, says director Dave Ebersole, who adds, “There are only a handful of playwrights who have come along in the last century that can write characters with this much depth.” Fences premiered in 1985 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, and after opening on Broadway in 1987, with James Earl Jones portraying Troy, it won awards across the board, from the Tony to Critics’ Awards to the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. Billy Dee Williams took over the role later in the run, which lasted nearly a year and a half. Over the past two decades, through many revivals, it has taken its place as one of the few recent plays that can truly be called classics in American drama.
This production has brought together an outstanding ensemble of performers at The Stagecrafters and is an experience in theater not to be missed.
|
||||||||||||||||||
