Converting a play to the big screen isn’t always successful. Often the intimacy of live theater doesn’t translate to venues more suited to booming blasts and car chases. But the film adaptation of “Fences,” which hits cinemas on Christmas Day, is the rare exception.
The 1983 play by August Wilson is set in the 1950s and, like many of Wilson’s works, it explores American race relations along with interpersonal family dynamics. Starring James Earl Jones and Mary Alice, the play won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tonys, including Best Play. Through the years it has become a staple of local theater with professional productions across the country taking on the timeless themes.
In Atlanta, Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon staged "Fences" in 1989 at the Alliance Theatre, where he was artistic director at the time. Now artistic director of True Colors Theatre, Leon directed a Broadway revival of the play in 2010 starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, both of whom won Tonys for their performances, as did the play for Best Revival.
Washington and Davis reprise their roles in the film version, which Washington also directs. He portrays Troy, a garbage collector with thwarted dreams of being a professional baseball player. She plays Rose, his wife. The play’s tension revolves around Troy’s disapproval of his son’s aspirations to play football and unfulfilled marriage expections between Rose and Troy.
While most of the play’s action takes place in the couple’s backyard where Troy is building a fence, the movie features scenes of Troy at work, in a bar with a friend and visiting his brother, an injured war veteran.
It comes as no surprise that the immense acting chops of Washington and Davis fill scenes with so much power and drama that one doesn’t long for bombs and crashes. But what came unexpectedly was the fullness of the quiet spaces in such an arena.
The film stays true to the play, just dressed up to meet Hollywood standards. In the same way that “The Wiz” or “Grease” were transformed for film, the movie version of “Fences” keeps the good parts and makes them fit the discipline.
The action on the screen seemed to compel the audience attending an advance screening to behave like live-theater goers. A 20-something sitting nearby said he’d never seen the play although he’d studied it in school, and he expected to be a little bored.
“I kept my phone on my lap just in case it got slow,” he said. “I didn’t touch it the whole time!”
About the Author
