The Colorful Times » Stage

Denzel Washington and Company Gun Through ‘Fences’

Don Gagnon — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:44:34 +0000

Perhaps the most popularly successful of August Wilson’s plays, Fences is currently enjoying a notable vogue in its first Broadway revival since the original production in 1987 that starred James Earl Jones, but less for the celebrity in the audience than for the star power on stage: Hollywood visitors Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in the lead roles. Originating from director Kenny Leon’s nascent production at Boston’s distinguished Huntington Theatre in 2009, it was recast, ostensibly for star power, for there were no “names” attached to that Boston production.

Despite less-than-consistent critical encomiums in its Broadway reincarnation, the production has been selling out—a rare feat for a serious, straight play on Broadway, especially one that focuses on the African American experience. If you have the fortitude to wait for day-of-show cancellations, you will be charged the price for premium seats: more than $400 per ticket. Clearly, there is a synergy at work. Combine a great play with star power and the potential to attract traditional and non-traditional (read: not white) audiences and the payoff is enormous. In fact, the grand popular success of the revival is making even Hollywood pay attention, once again, to Broadway. There is considerable talk that the play, long rumored for cinematic treatment, may now find its way to the local multiplex.

And that would be unfortunate.

The only Wilson play to be filmed so far was made for TV: a respectful production of The Piano Lesson featuring much of the original Broadway cast, directed by its Broadway director Lloyd Richards, and presented on “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” clearly not destined to be a great ratings winner but another succes d’estime for the Hallmark hallmark. In addition, when newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama took his wife on a long-promised first post-election date, they chose to attend the Lincoln Center Theatre’s revival of Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, thereby raising that play’s--and the playwright’s—profile even further. Now, Fences is poised to become, in a new medium, the highest-profile project among Wilson’s ten “century cycle” plays, with the long queues and bustling box office suggesting a bright green future.

But off-stage as well as on, this Fences is a cautionary tale. There is a price to be paid for such popular success as Hollywood entices with, and its lesson is especially appropriate to the life and work of August Wilson. As a child in Pittsburgh (where nine of his ten cycle plays are set), the impoverished Wilson watched his struggling mother win--and then lose--a new washing machine in a contest sponsored by a local radio station. The delivery men, upon seeing that the winner was a single black woman with children of mixed ethnicity, took the washer back and instead brought her a certificate for a used one from the Salvation Army—which she promptly refused. “Something ain’t always better than nothing,” Wilson recalls his mother teaching him about the experience. Sadly, the same may be said for this recent incarnation of Fences. While any serious production of a serious play that meets with such success should be welcome—especially for the black audiences that usually avoid the Great White Way—“something” should not be enough to satisfy, and there’s the rub.

Viola Davis and Denzel Washington in the Broadway revival of the August Wilson play Fences.

I had the great good fortune to secure tickets to the play. Having been astonished by the power of the same production of Joe Turner at the Belasco Theatre that lured the First Couple, I was eager to renew my acquaintance with Wilson’s work just a few blocks to the north at the Cort Theatre, courtesy of a group of theatre professionals whose successes are notable. However, I should have been forewarned by some cautionary word of mouth. Apparently, these “new” Broadway audiences were acting out as if they were attending Amateur Night at the Apollo or some churchified morality play designed more to elicit shouts and laughs than to evoke pity and fear, the Aristotelian earmarks of great tragedy. It seems as if, in its most recent incarnation, Fences was being welcomed to what Henry Louis Gates (and others) call “the Chitlin circuit”: a trope of plays, particularly by and for black audiences, that illustrate contemporary black American life in moralistic, pulpit-style platitudes that target the lowest common denominator in popular acceptance: euthanizing the audience with what they know and telling the audience what they want to hear, rather than challenging them to consider the complex and contradictory human dilemma.

Denzel Washington, left, and Viola Davis are in a scene from the Broadway revival of August Wilson's Fences, at the Cort Theatre in New York.

This talk of neo-“call and response” was, of course, merely rumor; confirmed word had not yet reached the street of Denzel Washington stepping out of character to quiet the growing “audience participation,” though notice of his actions would soon be getting about the Rialto. Still, recalling the critical words of critic Robert Brustein that Wilson was writing “victim literature,” I reserved judgement. After all, affecting drama should stir an audience. In the words of Wilson himself, “Art changes individuals; individuals change society.” Shouldn’t people be moved? Shouldn’t they, as I was at the stunning climax to Joe Turner, be lifted out of their seats—out of their lives, out of their comfort zones—by an artistic rendering of life so charged that to sit still is simply an impossibility?

Alas, it was not the audience that was failing the production, despite what I saw as vocal--but not overly exaggerated--audience response. Rather, it was the production that failed its audience in one particular way.

Alas.

In his 1991 essay “Where to Begin?” August Wilson delineated his ethics of writing. “To write,” he said, “is to fix language, to get it down and fix it to a spot and have it have meaning and be fat with substance.”

Perhaps fearing the play’s sheer cascade of words, language, and ideas, along with a nearly three-hour running time, a dearth of physical action, and a hint of the metaphysical—it mostly comprises people sitting around talking—the production’s powers-that-be seem to have settled on a strategy that that would serve the desires and needs of the audience rather than those of the play. No wonder audiences were responding so audibly; the production gave them license to do so. In the words of Todd Boyd, writing for the website The Root, “There’s a reason why there’s never been an adaptation of August Wilson at the multiplex. When it comes to the lives of black folks, Hollywood—and the movie-going audience—doesn’t do complicated, nuanced or subtle.” Clearly, the same could be said for the theatre-going audience, and just as clearly, this production of Fences seemed to have taken that assessment to heart.

Sitting and watching Washington and company machine-gun their way through the poetry of Wilson’s sharply observed dialect, I was put in mind of another “black” play: Dreamgirls. When profit-hungry producer Curtis Taylor, Jr. fires loose cannon James “Thunder” Early for, essentially, being too black for white audiences, he chastises the grinning singer who claims an inability to sing Johnny Mathis-type easy-listening songs: “That’s because, Jimmy, you don’t trust the music/And that’s because, Jimmy, you don’t trust the words.” That refrain ricocheted around my brain, along with the rapid-fire dialogue in Fences that practically left skid marks on my ears as it raced along. What a stark contrast it was to hear Wilson’s lines being flung at the audience and to consider the process by which the words came to be written.

In a 1996 article, Wilson describes how he began the process of writing a play by first washing his hands as a cleansing ritual, because he considered writing a “mystical and spiritual experience.” Then he strolled around his neighborhood—particularly the Hill district in Pittsburgh, his favorite dramatic locale. He ordered coffee at a diner, sat with a notebook in hand and waited for voices around him to land in his ear: “Sometimes, nobody wants to talk to me. That’s cool. I’ll wait a while and if it’s no good, I’ll move on to the next coffee shop. Like fishing.” The unhurried, even languid, pace of his creative process and its respect for the sound of the human voice and the language that transmits it is not what is being delivered at the Cort Theatre, however. The words--and the richly developed theme-and-variation conversations comprising them--that have earned Wilson Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards and Drama Desk awards, along with myriad others, are being flattened in a mad rush to the final curtain and to keep the proceedings from becoming too intense for an audience that the production seems to feel “doesn’t do complicated.”

Perhaps the most egregious example of this incomprehensible disrespect for the language and dialect that fired Wilson and distinguishes his literate drama comes when Washington’s Troy Maxson, the bitter ex-baseball player, describes to his friend and wife how he fought down the Devil. The speech—as much a soliloquy as anything in the play, for it is designed to be a pep talk for himself in his coming trials at work and home—is played as a comic battle between a street poseur—a 1950s gangsta with swagger--and a braggart Devil. This is the same conflict that Maxon will again have to engage at the climax of the play, but because of the play’s desire to entertain the crowds, and its haste to come in under two and a half hours, the moment is lost. It’s just part of Maxon’s bragging, rather than the heart of his conflicts with the world and himself. It gets laughs when it should induce chills. And it is only one such example.

Joe Turner Come and Gone” width=”330″ height=”450″ class=”size-full wp-image-2697″ />

Roger Robinson and Marsha Stephanie Blake in Bartlett Sher's revival of the August Wilson play Joe Turner's Come and Gone, at the Belasco Theater (2009).

One of the challenges is that Wilson’s plays are not trying to answer all the difficult questions. Rather, they often erupt with new questions that may or may not be answered. Witness the startlingly brief denouement of Joe Turner: the climax occurs, and then rather than relying on falling action to return the audience to some position of equilibrium, the play ends, refusing to clarify what just happened: it is enough that the event happened. Wilson does not spoon-feed. In his absence, the producers of Fences seem to have taken on the task for themselves; the fewer questions raised, the fewer need to be answered.

If it is true, according to Boyd’s claims in The Root, that Wilson’s work is wrought too finely to be widely appreciated or understood by black American audiences and the money moguls of Hollywood, “where all the creative life is often sucked from potentially brilliant works,” then it is not hard to see that this production in its casting, performance and direction (though Leon, also a Hollywood director, is perhaps more active in the theatre and has long been associated with Wilson, directing the original Broadway productions of Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, among others) resonates with West Coast sensibilities and sees the aesthetics of the play as through a funhouse glass, less darkly. Perhaps it is not surprising that Leon, already a bankable director because of his recent stage and television version of the classic A Raisin in the Sun, in which he allowed or encouraged significant cuts and changes to the classic Lorraine Hansberry script. And while that project was instigated by Sean “Diddy” Combs by means of establishing his rep as a serious (!) actor, it was Leon’s concept that eventually made a splash on stage and television. Phylicia Rashad’s outstanding performance notwithstanding, it was not Hansberry’s play any more than this Fences represents Wilson honestly.

There is a further irony at insidious play with this streamlined Fences. Wilson specified that major productions of his work were to be directed by black directors only, feeling that only someone who lived the experience could interpret his plays with the greatest validity. When Lincoln Center Theatre announced Bartlett Sher—a white director of considerable reputation—as director of Joe Turner, the claxons rang out, announcing a willing disregard for Wilson’s politics and aesthetics. That production received across-the-board raves, and upon its opening, the race issue quickly became silenced. Kenny Leon, an African American director, inspired no such pre-opening dyspepsia among the cognoscenti, yet his production flies far afield from the Wilson style, temperament, and respect of the language of Wilson’s Hill district.

Art is art. Opinions about art are relative. New theatrical productions of older plays need not be slavish in their adherence to the original, and I have often found myself delighted by unexpected discoveries in older plays: Brian Dennehy’s shattering descent into Willy Loman’s overwrought psyche rivaling if not surpassing that of the original Lee J. Cobb; Vanessa Redgrave’s unearthly Mary Tyrone; and the Donmar/Roundabout’s reconstruction of Cabaret, to name a few. However, these are all examples of art and artists who found more of what was already there, expanding rather than contracting the texts and contexts.

We know there is good art and bad art, and while critics, pundits and the proletariat all eventually decide what is embraced as valid and valuable, I wonder if, in trying to achieve popular success, we may not be sacrificing too much of what led to success. I often teach a course in American drama that traces a 20th century history of great plays and playwrights in terms of how they approach and interrogate success. Willy Loman, James Tyrone, Walter Lee Younger and others—many others—seem to teach a consistent lesson in the challenges engaged when one places personal gain above social or cultural ethics. The lesson is clear: sell out your people (family, neighbors, community) and you invoke your own doom.

I am not claiming that the artists involved in this production of Fences evince no respect for the art of August Wilson. Indeed, the major and minor names attached to the project would have every reason (though not all of them have equal ability) to do justice to Wilson’s achievement. However, I felt as I watched the play careen across the stage that if Wilson’s work is indeed among the very finest of its kind in the American dramatic tradition, then perhaps it is for the best that Fences—at least this version of Fences—remain a creature of the stage. The presence of Kenny Leon and a host of celebrity endorsements indicate that there is a good chance Hollywood will finally come calling in a big way. It will get award nominations because it seriously addresses issues of race in the United States, a sure-fire means by which to win the Gold Derby. It might even win Washington another Oscar and reenergize Davis’ options to rights of first refusal. However, if the cinematic Fences replicates its Broadway strategy of speed, sermons and smiles, the result may tilt the tills to full, but its soul will starve. After all, something ain’t always better than nothing.

Related Blogs

Related Posts:

NOW SHOWING – FELA! The Musical

Staff — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:57:36 +0000

FELA! is a new musical directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones with a book by Jim Lewis, in which audiences are welcomed into the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti.

Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! explores Kuti’s controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician.

Featuring many of Fela Kuti’s most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones’s imaginative staging, this new show is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theatre. Like it? Leave a comment!

‘Fela!’
Sahr Ngaujah plays the title character in this video still from the new Broadway musical. (“Fela!” on Broadway)

Related Posts:

Six Questions for Arthur Mitchell

Paul Boakye — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:09:02 +0000

In 1955, he became the first African-American male dancer to become a permanent member of a major ballet company, in his case, the School of American Ballet. In 1969, Arthur Mitchell co-founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Now forty years old, Dance Theatre has grown into a multicultural institution of world renown. He talked about dance, art and life.

How would you compare the Dance Theatre of Harlem to the long tradition of Russian ballet?

You must understand Mister Balanchine was my teacher and mentor. In 1986, we were the last company to tour what was formally the USSR. And we were formally inducted into the history of the Russian Ballet. They said “You are Russian because all your teachers are Russian.” And so, if you go to the Kirov Museum, we have a wall in the museum carrying on the legacy. I am a great fan of Mister Balanchine because what he did in Russia has extended the classical vocabulary into what we now call neo-classic. He choreographed primarily for the kinetic energy and the speed of the American dancer. What he was greatly influence by is Jazz. And that’s why many times you’ll see his ballets danced by traditional companies, the steps are correct, but the energy it’s coming from is not right. It doesn’t have the freedom of using the pelvis and the back to give it that Jazz feeling. He felt that dancing was a movement through time and space not just making a pose. It’s how you get into the step and out of the step that is the dance part.

Have you faced any prejudice from black communities because of your choice to be a ballet dancer?

No, no, no. It’s interesting because now as we travel around the world, every third world country, and I really don’t like that phrase because all these countries are older than us, but they all want to be like Dance Theatre. “We want to be like you,” they say, “because we’ve been under the rule of other countries that we want to have our expression, not throwing away the technique.” They say, “You are our role model.” When we went to South Africa during the last year of Apartheid, they said when the curtains went down Mister Mandela sat there and he did not move. He said, “I do not want this to end.” They brought him back stage and he had tears in his eyes. He said, “I cannot thank you enough for coming to my country at this time. For three hours I have sat in the theatre and I have forgotten all of my troubles.” We broke the 30-year cultural ban by going there, and art can do that. Artists can do and go and be something that a politician and a businessman often cannot do.

What advice would you give to a young man interested in ballet but afraid of the negative reaction he might receive from family and friends?

When the young basketball players were coming by, I’d say to them, “How tall are you?” He’d say, “5’10.” I’d say, “I can teach you to out jump someone who is 6’3″ -- it’s called the Demi-plie -- the more you bend the higher you can jump.” So they started learning it. Now all the athletes in America are doing it. They don’t call it ballet, but those are ballet exercises. Like Michael Jordan, he is famous for his 360 and dunk. I tell the boys, “I can teach you to do a 720 and dunk -- the double tour en l’air.” And then I show them how to jump, how to land so they don’t hurt themselves, how to warm themselves up properly. Now I started this in 1968, doing these athletic workshops, and I’d always ask the coach, “Give me the second string.” When I got through with them they were better than the first string. We got the swimming team and the coach was telling them to swim to the end of the pool and then kick off to go back. I said, “Pardon me, sir, when you say kick, you just bring your leg back. Why don’t you tell them to push off? And by pushing, they gain seconds. Torvill and Dean, look what they did with ice skating, they took classical ballet every day.

What do you consider to have been the greatest obstacle in your career and how did you overcome it?

It still is raising money. We don’t have government subsidy as you have in Great Britain. And so you have to go out and raise money all the time when my job and love is teaching and working with children.

Is racism still an issue within the classical arts today?

Dance Theatre has been accepted. We’re beloved in Russia, Africa, Asia, Japan, Australia, Europe, London; it’s just unbelievable, everywhere we go people love the company. We’re 35-years old this year. But, there is not the multitude of minority dancers dancing in major companies around the world. But then you must understand that for every one hundred Caucasian kids that study dance only ten are going to make it. So if you have only ten minority dancers studying only one will make it. In many parts of the Third World the Arts are something you do for social graces, not as a career, but I think that stereotypical concept is slowly being broken down.

So are there any ambitions left?

Oh God, yes. When you have a dream or a concept or an idea, if it’s accomplished then there’s nothing else. The first step was to disprove the notion that blacks couldn’t do classical ballet. And they kept telling me that I was an exception. I said, “No, I had the opportunity.” So rather than argue, I started the school. Then, when I stopped dancing, there were no role models. Now I’m talking about 55-years ago, I’ll be seventy years old this month. What I want to do now: I want every country to sponsor two dancers to come into my company, and the company is going to be called, Noah’s Art. This company will tour the world and show people regardless of race, class, creed or colour, it’s the quality of what you do that’s most important. And then, if you have the ability to make the magic on the stage, that’s the icing on the cake.

Related Posts: