5/22/2023 0 Comments Fences 1987 full play![]() ![]() The others in his 10-play cycle about African-American life in the 20th century - “The Piano Lesson,” “Two Trains Running” and “Seven Guitars” among them - received raves from critics but didn’t recoup. “Fences” was Wilson’s only financially successful play on Broadway. “He was offered it a few times, but he knew he was too young,” a source close to the actor says. He’s long wanted to play the part, but is only now, at 54, the right age. Washington saw that performance and never forgot it. Jones’ Troy embraces all the contradictions of being black and male and American in his time,” Rich wrote. “A black man, a free man, a descendent of slaves, a menial laborer, a father, a husband, a lover - Mr. James Earl Jones played Troy in the original 1987 production, winning every award in sight, including the Tony (when that now-tarnished trophy still meant excellence in the theater).Ĭritic Frank Rich thought it was the best role of Jones’ career. He is bitter and full of rage, although there are moments in the play when he is tender, quiet and poetic. Troy is a man “so big,” his wife says, that he fills up their tenement house just by walking through it.Ī garbage collector living in a Pittsburgh slum in the 1950s, he was once a baseball player in the Negro Leagues, but his career never went anywhere. ![]() The Oscar-winning actor will tackle one of the great roles in the American theater - Troy Maxson - in a revival this spring of August Wilson’s “Fences.” D enzel Washington isn’t coming to Broadway to play it safe. ![]()
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