In its performance of August Wilson’s classic, the Madison Repertory Theater takes a swing for the fences but falls appropriately short. It’s not a great play, but it’s not supposed to be.
This month, the Civic Center hosts the first-ever Madison production of August Wilson’s “Fences.” The production effectively makes the audience sympathize and care about the play’s characters — the key to making any tragedy successful.
While it could be accurately described as a black version of “Death of a Salesman,” “Fences” is even more difficult to watch than Arthur Miller’s masterpiece. Like “Salesman,” “Fences” shows its lead character’s self-destruction, only this time against a tragic background of American racism.
As the play opens, the main character, Troy Maxson, played by “Sesame Street’s” Roscoe Orman, comes home from work with his best friend, Bono, played by D.J. Howard. The two share a bottle of gin and sit on Troy’s front porch, joking as his family comes and goes. Troy tells wonderful stories from his days in the Negro baseball league and shares his dreams of a better life for himself and his family. Everybody in the play likes and respects Troy; the audience soon does, too.
But as the play moves along slowly and deliberately, the early carefree scenes gradually break down as Troy fails to shake his haunted past and his life crumbles around him.
Throughout the play, fences are the key prop, both physically and metaphorically. The play measures time by Troy’s progress on building a fence around his yard. Ironically, as he builds the fence between himself and the theater’s audience, he also closes off his family and his friends, to the point where he is a shadow of his former proud self.
Among those he cuts off is his son, Cory, played by Karim Ra. Ra is horribly outperformed by Orman. Nevertheless, the tenuous relationship between the two of them is crucial to maintaining the play’s modern relevance.
Throughout the play, Troy refuses to believe times may be changing, despite all signs to the contrary. Wrongly, he sacrifices his relationship with his son in hopes of helping Cory avoid history’s wrongs. The relationship is an intergenerational reminder of how times change, but family relations do not.
“Fences” is a play with heart, although it is Orman that keeps it beating. Building a character only to have him self-destruct is no easy feat, but Orman does it magnificently. Best known for his long-running portrayal of Gordon on “Sesame Street,” Orman plays a far more complex and real character in his first performance with the Madison Rep. It is no easy role: Emotional, comical, tragic and physical all at once, Orman tackles a wide spectrum of acting as the show’s star and anchor.
His performance is so strong many of the other actors seem to surrender when they perform opposite him. Aside from a few powerful monologues, Madison Rep regular Vikki Myers, who plays Troy’s wife, Rose, moves about the stage in Orman’s omnipresent shadow. The other characters deliver their lines in his echoes.
Fortunately, most of the play features Troy, usually building his fence or swinging a baseball bat in his yard, while his family and friends come and go (more often the latter). Until the end of the play, he is absent in few scenes; when he leaves the stage, nobody comes close to filling the void.
For Madison’s first production of “Fences,” the Isthmus Playhouse is the perfect setting in its modesty — the set, lighting and costumes are all properly humble. Except for Orman, who appears thanks to the assistance of a special fund designed to bring national artists to Madison, the play’s frugality is evident but appropriate. In fact, “Fences” most likely works better in Madison than in the major leagues — the play is not about American successes, but the more tragic, underappreciated class.
