Fences by National Players at Hyattsville Publick Playhouse – December 9, 2022
Last night (Friday, December 9, 2022) Filomena and I met old friends Val and Doug at Publick Playhouse in Hyattsville, MD for a National Players performance of August Wilson’s Fences. We were all a bit curious about the one-night performance, but we just went with it. By the way, Val has been a participant and supporter of my Zoom American Century Cycle study groups and is a former co-worker.
Turns out, the National Players are a touring theatrical company based in Olney, MD, that has been in constant operation since 1949, the nation’s oldest touring company. And this performance was the final performance of their 73rd season AND their first selection of a play by a black writer with an all-black cast. We didn’t know any of this up front! In yet another coincidence, the company was founded by a Catholic University professor, Father Gilbert V. Hartke. The last time we hung with Val and Doug was at my CUA post-graduation party after finishing my MSLIS.
Separate added feature of the performance include that it played before a hometown crowd (Hyattsville is not that far from Olney), many of the cast members were from DC or had DC area connections, and the price was right (for senior citizens like us, barely more than what you would pay to see a movie). The packed playhouse was filled with the usual suspects: August Wilson aficionados like us, family members of the ensemble, and mostly locals out for good entertainment. All three groups were fully satisfied by the performance.
And the play. If you’ve been reading this blog, you already know I’ve led study groups on the August Wilson American Century Cycle since 2018. Every year, sometimes twice a year, we’ve studied Fences, Wilson’s most famous and, by his own account, his best-written play (Wilson said his favorite play was Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, but Fences was his best play). I saw Fences on Broadway in 1987, saw the Denzel Washington produced film in which Viola Davis won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and have seen several local productions. But this one, and specifically this Rose Maxson played by Ria Simpkins, was the first one whose performance was so authentic and so compelling that it actually brought tears to my eyes. And I’m not just talking a wee weeping, I’m talking boo-hoo tears. This Rose nailed the character for me in ways neither Mary Alice (in the James Earl Jones production), God rest her soul, or Viola Davis (in the Denzel Washington production and Oscar winner) ever did.
I think a lot of my emotional response may have been a result of the stage manager’s use of the set and the stage on the particular monologue (end of Act Two, Scene 1) when Troy comes home and announces his adulterous relationship with Alberta and the inevitable consequence, her pregnancy. Although it’s not in the actual stage directions, while Troy is talking he and Rose are separated by the entire width of the stage, with Troy in the foreground pacing back and forth making baseball analogies and Rose in the background at the edge of the porch, disbelieving (in her facial gestures) his every word. Then when it reaches the part where Rose says “I been standing with you,” both have moved and are standing side by side center stage, their physical positions reflecting Rose’s words “standing with you.” It was poetry and drama and choreography all compacted into a single moment in time. That is some serious stage management. August Wilson would have been proud. He also may have shed a tear or two! The Stage Manager, by the way, Ryan Anthony, is in the last semester of a BFA program at Bowie State University, according to Instagram (@NationalPlayers) and Twitter (@NationalPlayers). But back to Rose. Ria Simpkins. Remember that name.
The other characters who stood out for me include Donte Bynum, who as Bono grew on me over the course of the play (which is to say, I didn’t immediately like him from the start, but I loved him at the end, so something was happening!), and Avery Ford, who added charm, character and authenticity to the character Lyons, with his personable gestures repeated in his every interaction, especially with his father, Troy, his brother, Cory, and Bono.
Two more final things about the production. To really understand August Wilson, I think it helps to see his plays performed in front of a black, church-going audience. The crowd’s vocal responses throughout the play, the “boos,” the “amens,” the applause at the end of every scene add so much value to the play. My readings of multiple August Wilson interviews suggest that was his exact intention. It’s the direct interaction by the theater-goers with the action on the stage as that energy transfers from the characters to the public via Wilson’s poetry.
And finally, last night at the end of the play, after the curtain call, the characters all came down into the audience to talk, to chat, to groove with the people in attendance. I call it Act Three of a two act play. Normally, at Arena Stage for example, the cast disappears into their dressing rooms and are never heard from again. And even on nights when there is a scheduled discussion, the actors behave in a somewhat stilted way, bothered to have to be there. I managed to meet “Rose” in the vestibule with her elderly mother and told her how her performance brought tears to my eyes. She thanked me and said, “Let me give you a hug.”
I scarfed a photo of the cast from Instagram:
Last night (Friday, December 9, 2022) Filomena and I met old friends Val and Doug at Publick Playhouse in Hyattsville, MD for a National Players performance of August Wilson’s Fences. We were all a bit curious about the one-night performance, but we just went with it. By the way, Val has been a participant and supporter of my Zoom American Century Cycle study groups and is a former co-worker.
Turns out, the National Players are a touring theatrical company based in Olney, MD, that has been in constant operation since 1949, the nation’s oldest touring company. And this performance was the final performance of their 73rd season AND their first selection of a play by a black writer with an all-black cast. We didn’t know any of this up front! In yet another coincidence, the company was founded by a Catholic University professor, Father Gilbert V. Hartke. The last time we hung with Val and Doug was at my CUA post-graduation party after finishing my MSLIS.
Separate added feature of the performance include that it played before a hometown crowd (Hyattsville is not that far from Olney), many of the cast members were from DC or had DC area connections, and the price was right (for senior citizens like us, barely more than what you would pay to see a movie). The packed playhouse was filled with the usual suspects: August Wilson aficionados like us, family members of the ensemble, and mostly locals out for good entertainment. All three groups were fully satisfied by the performance.
And the play. If you’ve been reading this blog, you already know I’ve led study groups on the August Wilson American Century Cycle since 2018. Every year, sometimes twice a year, we’ve studied Fences, Wilson’s most famous and, by his own account, his best-written play (Wilson said his favorite play was Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, but Fences was his best play). I saw Fences on Broadway in 1987, saw the Denzel Washington produced film in which Viola Davis won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and have seen several local productions. But this one, and specifically this Rose Maxson played by Ria Simpkins, was the first one whose performance was so authentic and so compelling that it actually brought tears to my eyes. And I’m not just talking a wee weeping, I’m talking boo-hoo tears. This Rose nailed the character for me in ways neither Mary Alice (in the James Earl Jones production), God rest her soul, or Viola Davis (in the Denzel Washington production and Oscar winner) ever did.
I think a lot of my emotional response may have been a result of the stage manager’s use of the set and the stage on the particular monologue (end of Act Two, Scene 1) when Troy comes home and announces his adulterous relationship with Alberta and the inevitable consequence, her pregnancy. Although it’s not in the actual stage directions, while Troy is talking he and Rose are separated by the entire width of the stage, with Troy in the foreground pacing back and forth making baseball analogies and Rose in the background at the edge of the porch, disbelieving (in her facial gestures) his every word. Then when it reaches the part where Rose says “I been standing with you,” both have moved and are standing side by side center stage, their physical positions reflecting Rose’s words “standing with you.” It was poetry and drama and choreography all compacted into a single moment in time. That is some serious stage management. August Wilson would have been proud. He also may have shed a tear or two! The Stage Manager, by the way, Ryan Anthony, is in the last semester of a BFA program at Bowie State University, according to Instagram (@NationalPlayers) and Twitter (@NationalPlayers). But back to Rose. Ria Simpkins. Remember that name.
The other characters who stood out for me include Donte Bynum, who as Bono grew on me over the course of the play (which is to say, I didn’t immediately like him from the start, but I loved him at the end, so something was happening!), and Avery Ford, who added charm, character and authenticity to the character Lyons, with his personable gestures repeated in his every interaction, especially with his father, Troy, his brother, Cory, and Bono.
Two more final things about the production. To really understand August Wilson, I think it helps to see his plays performed in front of a black, church-going audience. The crowd’s vocal responses throughout the play, the “boos,” the “amens,” the applause at the end of every scene add so much value to the play. My readings of multiple August Wilson interviews suggest that was his exact intention. It’s the direct interaction by the theater-goers with the action on the stage as that energy transfers from the characters to the public via Wilson’s poetry.
And finally, last night at the end of the play, after the curtain call, the characters all came down into the audience to talk, to chat, to groove with the people in attendance. I call it Act Three of a two act play. Normally, at Arena Stage for example, the cast disappears into their dressing rooms and are never heard from again. And even on nights when there is a scheduled discussion, the actors behave in a somewhat stilted way, bothered to have to be there. I managed to meet “Rose” in the vestibule with her elderly mother and told her how her performance brought tears to my eyes. She thanked me and said, “Let me give you a hug.”
I scarfed a photo of the cast from Instagram:
It was all well worth the drive in horrible end-of-week commuter traffic from DC to Hyattsville. By the way, “Hyat” in Arabic means “Life.”