Zipping along on my Summer Reading Plan for 2015. How are
you doing with yours? Mine is heavily weighed with drama
selections this year. I just finished Fences by August Wilson.
It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1987.
It’s a strong play with a father-son theme which is disturbing
and absorbing. Troy Maxson has fought his way up to a
somewhat stable life with a son from a former marriage and
a wife and son by the new marriage. As a black man, he has
had his share of troubles.
His wife wants him to build a fence around their small house.
It is an ongoing project throughout the play. But is the fence
to keep them safe from the outside world? Or is it a shield
to keep themselves in?
Humor and disagreements alternate in the dialogue and the
play’s 101 pages fly along.
I’ve read two other plays by Wilson: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
and The Seven Guitars. Both won the New York Drama Critics’
Circle Award. Years ago O’Half and I saw Ma Rainey’s Black
Bottom on stage (best play on Broadway in 1984-85 season).
You are guaranteed interesting reading with a gentle backward
look at life in the 1950s and early 60s. Let me know what you
think if you decide to read it.
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