Notes on Fences, Session 7, Week 3
Session #7
Every time you think you’ve exhausted an August Wilson play, new ideas, thoughts and connections spill out and overflow whatever container you may have thought previously existed. That is certainly the case with Fences.
We spoke in our group discussion of Fences as a play of many betrayals, some more obvious and some less obvious. Troy Maxson is the immediate first place for identification of betrayal. Troy betrayed his wife, Rose, when his infidelity resulted in impregnating Alberta. In so far as his best friendship and strongest relationship involved both his wife and his longtime buddy, Bono, his betrayal of Rose was also a betrayal of Bono. It may be argued that Rose betrayed herself by trading in her own sense of individual fulfillment in exchange for a constant partnership with Troy and a fulfilling family life with her son, Cory, and later, her daughter, Raynell. Cory lied to his father about the after school job at A&P in order to play high school football, a type of betrayal that was highlighted by his gross disrespect for his father that resulted in his ultimate departure from the family home.
Bono was a consistent “good” friend to the family, as his name implies. It seems the friendship between Troy and Bono became somewhat strained when Troy got the promotion at work, but their separation was triggered primarily, I think, when Troy went public about Alberta’s pregnancy. There are clear indications in the text of the play where Bono (1) warned Troy about his ongoing behavior and (2) was disappointed in the results of that behavior and Troy’s failure to “make it work out right.” In terms of character development, I think Bono proceeded on a positive arc, consistently becoming a better man and a better friend. He even got better at playing dominoes!
Lyons, Troy’s son by a previous relationship, is a constant in terms of the positive development of characters. He neither becomes a better or a worse person over the decade covered in the play, though his petty criminal indiscretions do land him in “the work house,” a type of incarceration.
And there is Gabe, Troy’s brother, left disabled from his service in World War II. While Gabe moves in and out of family discussions, often oblivious to what is actually being discussed, he does rise to the occasion at the very end where, after failing to get his trumpet to emit any sound to open the Pearly Gates for Troy, he performs a ritualistic dance and howl that work in substitute.
Speaking of the end, it appears that Troy makes it into Heaven, despite his apparent misdeeds. There are lots of passages in the play related to Troy’s rather stoic view of God, the devil, and facing his final judgement and we have teased those out in earlier session notes. Let’s just say here that Troy did remain true to himself and that perhaps it worked out for him in the end.
A few side notes.
Wilson makes ample use of Charley Patton blues lyrics early in Act 1 Scene 1. “Hitch up my pony, saddle up my mare” and “Baby I don’t wanna to marry, I just wanna be your man” are both lines from Charley Patton’s Pony Blues, added to the Fences YouTube playlist. Later in the same monologue, Wilson quotes from Patton’s Banty Rooster Blues in the lines, “Okay baby, but I’m gonna buy me a banty rooster and put him out there in the backyard, and when he see a stranger come, he’ll flap his wings and crow.” Charley Patton, also known as the “Father of the Delta Blues,” recorded a song, O Death, that contains elements of Troy Maxson’s beliefs about death.
Wilson’s insertion of the story about grocery shopping at Bella’s was reminiscent of and perhaps even a nod of acknowledgement to the James Alan McPherson short story, “A Loaf of Bread,” where a merchant charged higher prices at his shop in a black neighborhood because of higher operating costs/overhead.
Late in the play and just before dying, Troy remarks that he has lost his sense of taste. Ageusia, loss of the sense of taste, can occur naturally as part of the aging process. “Taste is a complex sense involving many organs and tissues, such as the tongue, roof of the mouth, throat, and nose.” Its loss, as well as the loss of the sense of smell, can also result from diseases that affect the central nervous system, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Session #6
All: I'll begin by saying I went through the same emotional turmoil in Act 2 that I always experience, even though I've read the play at least nine times and know the outcome. My wife says I'm too sympathetic to/with Troy, but it does grieve me when Cory tries to walk past his father and won't even say excuse me. Then when he says "You don't count around here anymore," it really breaks me up. Troy is still the primary breadwinner, he still brings his check home to Rose. How about a little bit of respect?
We begin with a brief synopsis. Very brief.
Troy Maxson, our protagonist, works on a garbage truck. It is tough work. He migrated north, lived a life of crime, was imprisoned where he learned baseball, upon his release enjoyed some success in the Negro baseball league. He never learned to read or write. He has a best friend, Bono, who he met while incarcerated, and who works with him on the garbage truck. Troy was already past his prime when the major league integrated. He is bitter he never got a chance to play. He has a wife, Rose, and a son, Cory, who fashions himself a great athlete. He has a son by a prior relationship, Lyons, who is a musician who can't find or keep a job. And he has a brother, Gabriel, who was injured in World War II and now has special needs.
Troy discourages Cory from following athletic pursuits, even though Cory thinks it may be his ticket to college. This father-son conflict is central to the main plot.
Meanwhile, somewhat discouraged by his lack of progress in life in general, Troy forms an adulterous relationship with Alberta, who becomes pregnant with their child. When Troy takes the news of this pregnancy to Rose, she is incensed, of course. Alberta dies in childbirth and Troy brings the baby home. Rose accepts to raise the child, but consigns Troy permanently to the doghouse while she gets increasingly involved in church activities. Troy and Cory have a final fallout and Troy puts Cory out of the house. Cory ends up joining the military instead of going to college.
Troy retires but in his golden years he finds himself abandoned by Rose, his wife, by Bono, his best friend, and by Cory, his son. He even loses his sense of taste. Troy dies in his 60's. Lyons is released from prison to attend the funeral, and Gabriel comes home from the hospital/institution where he has been committed. Bono organizes the pallbearers, and Cory comes home from the Marines and meets a much older Raynell, his new sister. The family is reunited.
A few notes about the beginning and end of the play, as captured from original sources in Professor Shannon's excellent book, The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson.
The beginning. Fences was Wilson's third play in this series. At its writing he had neither a plan nor an intention to write ten plays, one for each decade in the 20th century. The first effort, Jitney, was about a bunch of guys operating an illegal cab service in 1970's Pittsburgh. The second play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, was about musicians recording in a studio in 1920's Chicago. Theater professionals convinced Wilson to make his third play "more commercial and conventional," more accessible to theater-goers. Wilson decided a play about a nuclear family with a strong central protagonist would fit the bill. So he wrote a play about Troy Maxson and his nuclear family in 1950's Pittsburgh.
The end. Broadway producers and investors responsible for bringing the play to Broadway sought to change the end of the play to minimize if not delete the role of Gabriel, who blew his horn to open Heaven's gates for Troy. They referred to the play's end as "silly," and cited negative reviews on regional performances in New Haven, Chicago, and San Francisco. Broadway producer Carol Shorestein led the charge to change the play, and organized a series of meetings to change the play's end that did not include Wilson's input or approval. Shorestein fired the director, Lloyd Richards, when he would not agree to her proposed changes, but she was not able to hire a new director without Wilson's approval, which was not forthcoming. In the end, the play opened on Broadway to rave reviews, with the original ending intact.
Gabriel is the first "challenged" character in Wilson's American Century Cycle of plays, but he won't be the last. We should keep a list and discuss at some appropriate point.
Now some notes from my reading of the play.
1. I suspect that Troy's indiscretion was no surprise. To anybody. Bono certainly knew. I suspect Cory knew as early as Act 1 Scene 3 when he makes a reference, in conversation with his mother, about his father not working on the fence and instead going down to "Taylors'" to watch television. He confirms it later when he asks his father to buy a TV for their home and Troy refuses. Also, in the same Scene 3, Troy returns home and Rose asks him the score of the game. Rose knew Troy wasn't slipping out to no game. He was creeping! So, why the big surprise when Troy finally tells Rose? Now for me, Troy's real sin was his hypocrisy, not his whoring around. He holds Cory to a much higher standard when he accuses Cory of lying to him about football and the A&P store. And he acts on his hypocrisy when he goes behind Cory's back and tells the coach Cory won't be playing football, talking about Cory did it to himself when he lied, all the while Troy is lying about laying up with Ms. Alberta, a much more consequential lie. What would Dante say? Troy's fraudulent behavior (with respect to Cory and Rose) is a greater sin than his incontinent behavior.
2. There are some interesting appearances (and reappearances) by people in Fences. From the top, we have Mr. Rand, who also appears in Jitney as the mean landlord. Pearl Brown, who hit the number for a dollar, was Floyd's girlfriend in Seven Guitars. Pope, who bought a restaurant with his numbers winnings, also shows up earlier in Jitney, Seven Guitars and later in Two Trains Running. Joe Canewell, whose daughter was Troy's love interest as a teenager, appears earlier in Seven Guitars and later in its sequel, King Hedley II, with a new name, Stool Pigeon. Both Troy and Booster in Jitney actually grew up while incarcerated for murder - so rehabilitation works. Troy's monologue with Rose in Act 2 (p. 66) about his failures is reminiscent of Floyd's seven ways in Seven Guitars. Troy tells Cory "You are just another nigger on the street." Becker says the same thing to Booster. at the end of Troy's final scene alive, he has lost his sense of taste. Same thing happened to Herald Loomis in Joe Turner's Come and Gone. And finally, Raynell is obsessed with her garden, just as Hedley was obsessed with his garden.
One final thought, among the many for discussion. We know Fences is highly autobiographical for Wilson, but in interesting ways. Wilson’s biological father, who was white, abandoned the family. Troy never does abandon his family, and in fact, augments it, even though the accepted social pronouncement of the black family includes the absentee father. Troy’s stepfather, though, is a different story. David Bedford, who marries Daisy Wilson Kittel following the death of her husband, had an interesting background as a star football player who wanted to become a physician in the 30’s, who wasn’t able to find money for college. He robs a store to acquire money for college, and in the process kills the storekeeper, for which he is incarcerated for over twenty years. After serving his sentence, Bedford returned to the Hill District, where the only employment open to him was on a garbage truck. Here it gets interesting. Bedford encouraged Wilson to play sports and be involved in athletics. Unlike Troy, when Wilson didn’t exactly show interest in sports, Bedford strongly expressed his disappointment.
Knowing this strong auto-biographical element in the play, we should look for other clues, direct or inverted, to help us see what Wilson is ACTUALLY telling us in this play.
Post session #6 notes.
First, pertinent excerpts from the two day intro course:
OK, Fences. Troy Maxson, our illustrious anti-hero, learns baseball in prison after killing a man in a robbery gone bad. He becomes a big star in the Negro Baseball league. But by the time the Major League integrates and admits black players, Troy is in his 40’s and considered to be past his prime. In his bitterness about lost opportunities, he attempts to pass on to his son a lesson about the false promise of sports.
Meanwhile, Troy takes on a side chick, Alberta, who, seeking refuge from his disappointments, he impregnates. Troy has some issues.
But Troy’s greatest obstacle to individual progress, in my opinion (and I think it is an opinion that Wilson shared and led me to by following the bread crumbs), is his functional illiteracy. Try cannot read or write. Nor does he appear to be doing anything about it. He makes mistakes in judgement and in decisions affecting his family and his work because of it. It is the thing I dislike the most about the Troy character.
Troy and Rose act out the universal theme of Beauty and the Beast. Pretty girl gets involved with boy who is in some way disfigured. She sticks with him in the faith that, deep inside and in the end, he is really a handsome prince. She makes all sorts of accommodations to get it to work out. Except, in a clever twist of the ancient theme that only an August Wilson influenced by a Jorge Luis Borges could create, Troy doesn’t become a handsome prince in the end. He just becomes an older Troy, who, coincidentally, is named for an ancient city in Turkey where a different type of trickery takes place. Again, this reversal of the Beauty and the Beast theme is what we get when we cross the Blues with Borgesian magical realism. Wilson is not the original Trickster, but he does manage to keep us in our seats until the final curtain call and the end of the story.
Speaking of the end of the story, Wilson doesn’t let us see Troy’s actual death. We only see the anticipation of the funeral and how it serves as a focal point for family re-unification. Fences has two unseen deaths in it, and more than one death is something uncommon for Wilson’s plays. Troy dies, and also, unseen, his girlfriend on the side, Alberta, who we never actually meet or hear from in the final, published version of the play, dies in childbirth.
But there is one more trick in the plot. This one never makes it to the public stage. In the play’s first draft, Troy gets into an argument with his son Cory, tempers flare, Cory grabs a baseball bat (poetic perhaps), and swings it at his father’s head. Troy, in his surprise, catches the bat, pulls out a pistol, points it at Cory, and cocks back the hammer. Cory leaves the family home that day and doesn’t return until his father’s funeral, we are led to conclude.
But that particular part of the play doesn’t survive rehearsals. Why not? What happens?
About the same time, but in real life, Marvin Gaye, of Motown fame, gets into an argument with his father, Rev. Gaye, about his unholy lifestyle in the entertainment world. Rev. Gaye pulls out a gun and fires it, fatally wounding his son, who dies instantly. True story.
Wilson and his production crew promptly decide the gun thing is too violent and too reminiscent of the death of popular singer Marvin Gaye. They re-write the play, omitting that particular dramatization, before the stage production. It never sees the light of day.
More pertinent notes from the two-day intro course, especially the Wilson-Bearden collaboration, here:
Second, a few concluding notes. As I mentioned, I am also doing the 100 Days of Dante readings and much of it spills over into my weekly August Wilson readings. Much like Dante whose thinking and outlook was evolving as he wrote The Divine Comedy, I suspect Wilson evolved as a playwright during the production of his plays (and of this thinking) in the American Century Cycle. He even attests to his continuing evolution in interviews. In the plays to follow, the seven plays that remain in the Cycle, I want to focus on Wilson’s development.
Moreover, I hope to focus on Wilson’s actual presence in his plays, both Wilson the pilgrim and wayfarer and Wilson the poet and recorder. Dante wrote words to the effect that there are four levels of analysis, four layers, if you will, of interpretation of artistic work. There is the literal (historical), the moral/ethical (tropological), the allegorical (typological), and the spiritual or mystical (anagogical). I hope to apply this analytical method to Wilson’s plays as we proceed.
Session #5
Below is the Romare Bearden collage, Continuities, that inspired Troy’s character in Fences. The man in the collage is bringing the baby home after its mother died in childbirth. Note the disproportionate size of the hands.
Fences always floods me with thoughts, as do all the plays in the cycle. Perhaps that is why leading the study group every Spring has become such a welcome ritual for me. Fences is August Wilson’s “family play.” It and all the rest of the plays in the cycle depict the black family, Wilson’s chosen identity, although he had a white immigrant German father. An English professor I met in Ghana, Dr.William Couch, Jr., told me that the African family, and by extension, the African village are Africa’s contribution and gift to all of humanity.
Let’s begin with the name of the tragic hero, Troy. The name refers both to a place in legend and a real-life archaeological site. Helen of Troy, a Spartan queen, was abducted by Paris, the son of Troy’s King Priam, which started the Trojan Wars. The city was, in legend, besieged for 10 years. Troy was eventually conquered by a Greek army led by King Agamemnon. So Troy as a name is already legendary, as was the soft-spoken pianist in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Toledo, also named for a legendary European city.
Through the story and background of Troy Maxson, Wilson introduces his audiences to the wonders and the greatness of the Negro Baseball League, and such legendary players as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Jackie Robinson, the first black player to break into the Majors. The first professional black team, the Cuban Giants, formed in New York in 1885. The National Colored Baseball League was established in 1887, failed, and was re-established in 1920. It lasted competitively until 1951 when major league baseball integrated. Baseball itself was “born” in Confederate prison camps in the south during the Civil War as a past-time for prisoners. At the end of the war, prisoners returned home and took baseball with them to their home towns. Troy learns to play baseball while imprisoned for murder and theft in the 1920’s and 1930’s. A Negro League star player and athlete, Troy resented never getting a crack at the Major League, being considered too old and past his prime.
Troy has an outsized personality, befitting a former professional athlete, and all the other characters revolve around him, that is until he begins to make mistakes, then one by one, each character drifts away from his orbit. Troy’s relationships with those around him are often complex and always genuine and authentic, but his indiscretions catch up with him and enclose him in a very personal and tragic hell of his own making.
The play is set in 1957, three years after the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v Board of Education, which put an end to the legal underpinning of the American style of apartheid. But nothing happens suddenly, and in my early teenage years in the late 1960’s, over a decade after the Supreme Court decision, I found myself involved in several initial integration efforts – the local public library, Boy Scout camp, public school and prep school. In fact, throughout my professional career, in the submarine Navy and in the diplomatic corps, I never saw a level of black participation even close to proportionate to our percentage of the population. Some fences work.
Rose has Troy building a fence so she can keep the family she cherishes in and the negative elements out. She seeks to achieve a type of “separateness,” a separate peace if you will. But it is not to be. Cory grows up and leaves, Troy seeks other love interests, and even Rose herself eventually finds outside solace in the church. The fence is not effective as a barrier wall against outside intrusion. We see analogues in the body politic. The countries of Southern Europe are vulnerable to African immigrants willing to take their chances with the perils of crossing the sea, a type of barrier. (Note: the Qaddafi fence kept that movement of immigrants in check for many years. Qaddafi’s demise re-opened to floodgates. End note). Similarly, the U.S. finds itself embroiled in a coming economic cataclysm as South and Central American immigrants take advantage of Biden executive actions to lower the barrier to entry by lessening the risks of illegal entry into the United States via its southern border. Israeli PM Netanyahu said just last week (March 10, 2021):
“In fact, I put up a fence, you know,” he added. “They call it a wall. But I prevented the overrunning of Israel, which is the only first-world country that you can walk to from Africa. We would have had here already a million illegal migrants from Africa, and the Jewish state would have collapsed. The Jewish State, Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, would have collapsed.”
Looking at real world uses of fences helps to put things in perspective.
Pay special attention to Wilson’s epigraph because it emerges at several fractures in the play. Also pay attention to Wilson’s prologue, called simply, “The Play.” It is laden with hints and forewarnings of secret surprises.
The play “paints” Troy as a pretty unsympathetic creature, especially vis-a-vis his son, Cory, and his wife, Rose. But is he really so bad a guy? Similarly, Cory is presented as pure as the driven snow, without spot of blemish. But he does lie to his father and sometimes he treats his father badly. Rose appears to be the long-suffering wife, but might that also be an optical illusion, a diversion from the reality that nobody is perfect?
Troy’s bantering about his struggles with the devil are entertaining, but it is only a subterfuge for real struggles and traumas he has faced in his life. His warnings to Cory about sports are legitimate and perhaps, well-founded. I don’t think Cory made a bad choice in joining the Marines, so long as he gets out at the end of his enlistment and before Vietnam heats up. Nobody needs to die in a foreign war.
I mention in notes from an earlier session that the spoken affection Troy has for Bono, and Bono reciprocates, was fairly unusual for men in the 1950’s. That impressed me.
When Lyons asked Troy to come see him play at the local club, Troy remarks that he doesn’t like that Chinese music. I had to look up that reference. Turns out jazz was very popular in Shanghai and even in Beijing from the late 1920’s, about the time, coincidentally, of Ma Rainey’s popularity in the U.S. Known as shidaiqu, a type of fusion between European jazz and Chinese folk, it was obliterated from the scene during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Speaking of which, Lyons’ verbalization of his attraction to music is strongly reminiscent of words Ma Rainey used.
Post-session notes.
Both Joan Herrington, in her essay “The Complexity of Conflict,” and Joan Fishman, in her essay, “Developing His Song: August Wilson’s Fences,” present us with what I call longitudinal cross sections of the various editions of Fences from its inception and first performance to its final, finished edition that we now see on stage and adapted for film. Two Joans. There are so many examples to cite of plot changes and line reversals over the course of production rehearsals. The most poignant for me is the analysis of the final conflict between Cory and Troy. An early edition has Cory swing the bat at Troy, followed by Troy getting a gun and actually cocking back the hammer and pointing the gun at Cory. Cory scurries into the alley and is not heard from again until Troy’s funeral. Shortly before the next edition of the play, the singer Marvin Gaye had been killed by his father with a gun. Wilson decided to drop the gun detail from the story.
While not pronounced loudly, it is significant to mention that Troy was a unionized employee and it was the union that interceded when he sought the promotion to a driver position on his job. We will see examples in other plays in the Cycle where unionization opportunities for better wages, better working conditions, and greater job security are denied to black employees. I only focused on it after reading about efforts to unionize workers at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Bessemer, AL.
Youtube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0Lvs-e_eIXYPmItHweBOyfAwDJ-x1qwO
Special bonus from Minnesota Public Radio: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/12/23/archives-august-wilson-fences-film-lou-bellamy
Session #4
First, the epigraph, or an interpretation of it, shows up in one of Rose’s monologues in Act 2, scene 3:
When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in His Largeness and Laws.
Second, the play is clearly another Wilson tragedy, but while it lacks the Greek Chorus of Seven Guitars or the prologue of Gem, “The Play” more than suffices as a predictor of things to come. Moreover, let me note here that while the first paragraph addresses Wilson’s father, the second addresses his mother and her ancestral line. The third and final paragraph brings it home to the play’s present setting.
A couple of things stand out for me in Scene 1.
Bono mentions of Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson, both historic personalities, somewhat legitimizes the play in a historical time setting. Troy establishes his philosophic credentials as a Stoic, facing death squarely and honestly (memento mori) and having no fear of Satan. Lyons connects to Ma Rainey and the blues tradition, describing music as something that “helps him get out of bed in the morning” and “makes him “feel like he belongs in the world.” Lyons also pushes back when Troy makes a derogatory comment about how his mother raised him, saying “You don’t know nothing about how I was raised.”
Scene 2 introduces us to Gabriel, Troy’s brother, disabled from the war, WWII. Again, Wilson forces us to acknowledge the existence of the disabled and how we must offer them a reasonable accommodation. We saw this with Hedley in Seven Guitars, with Sylvester in Ma Rainey, and to a limited extent, with Herald Loomis in Joe Turner. And we will see it again. Wilson exhibits a high sensitivity to the needs of the disabled and the mentally and intellectually-challenged.
Scene 3 introduces us to Cory, Troy and Rose’s youngest son, and his relationship with both. Note: It’s not a very conspicuous introduction, and it is almost as if Cory had always been with us, just hidden.
Scene 4 reveals that Troy’s “going to the Taylors” to watch TV is really code word for going to see “That Alberta girl,” as Bono calls her. Bono senses early that Troy’s catting around with Alberta is not kosher. Bono introduces “Searching out the New Land” and “the walking blues.” And we learn about Troy’s relationship with his father.
Act Two Scene 1 opens and closes with Troy, Rose and Cory, the central three-way relationship in the play. Troy reveals that he has been unfaithful. Cory has lied to continue playing football. Rose questions Troy’s infidelity. Cory reaches strike two with his father.
Scene 2 is Troy and Rose exclusively. Troy’s functional illiteracy is fully exposed in the process of getting Gabriel committed. And Alberta dies in childbirth.
Scene 3 is a short scene wherein Rose establishes that she will be a mother to Troy’s new baby, with a reflection of the language of the play’s original epigraph.
Scene 4 shows Troy’s total unraveling, and because today is April 19, I wrote a poem about it for my daily submission to NaPoWriMo:
Fences – Act Two, Scene Four. Troy’s slow descent into Hell.
In the denouement our classic warrior
(Such is the tragedy that was his life)
Loses all that was once near and dear.The cherished love of his wife is broken
After her decision to not refuse
The result of his infidelity.He loses the respect of his son,
So long assumed, compelled by fear,
Never inspired by true affection.His best friend doesn’t come around
Any more, not even for a Friday drink
That once satisfied a parched thirst.Finally, abandoned by his own sense
of taste (Yes! A multiple metaphor!),
He is left to swing aimlessly at all
Those fast balls on life’s outside corners.
Scene 5 is the Troy funeral scene.
Session #3
So much has been written on Fences. And small wonder. Five Tonys, five Drama Desk awards, the Pulitzer prize in its 1987 premier, then ten Tonys and four Drama Desk Awards in its 2010 revival. Its film adaptation earned four Oscar nominations and two Golden Globes nominations. A huge success by all measures and so many wonderful reviews, and academic articles.
We are not professional critics. We just like a good production, a good story, a good evening spent at the theater. Fences scores on all three.
It was my good fortune to catch the James Earl Jones – led performance on Broadway in late 1987. I missed the revival in 2010, but caught the film adaptation a couple of years ago.
Our discussions of the five plays so far cause me to focus in the first instance on family relationships. Here we have the Troy-Bono relationship, the father-son relationships, the Troy-Rose marriage dynamic, the Troy-Gabriel relationship. These relationships all involve Troy, the flawed Greek god of the play. These relationships are all worthy of note.
Troy and Bono go back to the time they shared in prison. They work together on the garbage truck. They are best friends and they are both comfortable in expressing their affection for one another. When Bono sees Troy headed for trouble with his “side chick,” Bono calls him out on it and reminds him of his obligation to his wife. Troy accepts the warning advice in good spirit (but does nothing about it). Bono is a friend to Troy until the end, arranging the pall bearers for Troy’s funeral, even though they become somewhat distant after Troy’s transgression with Alberta and the birth of Raynell.
There are two father-son relationships, both complex and complicated. Troy’s oldest son, Lyons, comes around on payday to hit his father up for loans. Troy was in prison during Lyon’s upbringing and may feel a twinge of guilt about not being around. Lyons styles himself a musician, but he is not all that good at it, at least not good enough to make a living. So he bums money from his now-present father.
Troy’s youngest son, Cory, is a high schooler who wants to go to college on a football scholarship. Of course, Troy discourages his son’s efforts because Troy thinks he got a raw deal in baseball, failing because of his age to make the transition from the Negro League to the Majors. Troy blames race discrimination and wants to shield Cory from a similar disappointment. Cory tells his father things have changed (and they have) and he wants to be able to take advantage of new opportunities.
Cory also wants his dad to buy a television for the family on credit. Cory wants to move into the future of the modern world while Troy lives in his history with excuses.
Troy and Rose. Troy is unfaithful to his wife. He comes up with a tightly woven explanation but it doesn’t carry water and it doesn’t pass the smell test. It stinks to high heaven, in fact. Rose is faithful to Troy, even after she realizes that he is not everything she had hoped he would be in a husband. She makes the best of a flawed situation.
Yet, many people sympathize with Troy in the end. “At least he stayed around and tried to do right,” folks say. “He wasn’t absent like Wilson’s own dad was,” they rationalize. “He did the best he could with limited means and a harsh external racist environment,” some might inveigh. We even transfer our sympathy to Denzel Washington at the Oscars ceremony as he gets passed over for Best Actor and for the film as Best Film because in our minds, Denzel has become Troy Maxson, the actor has become the character, and we see him there, flawed but somehow redeemable.
That, my friends is the power of great writing (and great acting). “It is in the nature of great acting, Shaw said, that we are not to see this woman as Ophelia, but Ophelia as this woman.”
Troy-Gabriel relationship.
Troy-Death relationship figures prominently.
Carole Horn’s notes are amazing! https://augustwilsonstudygroup.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/carole-horns-notes-on-fences-olli-au10-11-2018/
Session #2
Again, the playwright’s introduction is pure poetry. Here is the 1st paragraph in stanza form:
Near the turn of the century,
the destitute of Europe
sprang on the city
with tenacious claws
and an honest and solid dream.The city devoured them.
They swelled its belly until it burst
into a thousand furnaces and sewing machines,
a thousand butcher shops and bakers’ ovens,
a thousand churches and hospitals
and funeral parlors and money lenders.The city grew.
It nourished itself
and offered each man a partnership
limited only by his talent,
his guile and his willingness
and capacity for hard work.
For the immigrants of Europe,
a dream dared and won true.
These poem-intros bring to my mind the Greek chorus of ancient Greek drama, the collective voice that comments on the dramatic action (we will see more of this in future plays).
The epigraph of the play is from Wilson’s original poetry:
“When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in His Largeness and Laws.”
The play opens with a dialogue between two very old friends, Troy and Bono. It is a tried and true friendship and nothing is off the table for conversation. They discuss successes and shortfalls, routine stuff and special events, with a fluidity and continuity that makes the reader know there must be many stories wedged and buried between the lines.
We learn that the duo is a trio with the entry of Troy’s wife, Rose, an equal partner in the discussion, well most of the discussion. They chat on the back porch as it is a time, the 1950’s, before television AND air conditioning made the insides of our homes a more comfortable place. 90% of the rest of the play takes place outside, on the porch, and closer to nature, perhaps. At least farther from the confines of an enclosed space.
The first scene introduces us to Troy’s son, Cory, who wants to be an athlete like his Dad and definitely has the skills. But baseball, or at least his failure to get a shot at the pro league in his youth, has left a bitter taste in Troy’s mouth and he has every intention of discouraging his son from pursuing a similar dream. The rest of the play shows that conflict, father vs. son, and the possibility of dreams vs the reality of dreams forever deferred.
And there are other conflicts and tensions. Some get resolved, some don’t, and some just muddle along. There is a growing and gnawing disappointment between Rose and Troy for each other. Troy’s oldest son, Lyons, is a static character throughout, in pursuit, by extension, of a hopeless dream. Troy’s new daughter, who arrives by an inopportune circumstance, perhaps, shows flashes of optimism for the future of the family.
A few points for further discussion:
1. Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson in juxtaposition. Was Babe the white Josh or was Josh the black Babe? Also mention of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, and George Selkirk (Babe Ruth’s successor, as perhaps Troy envisioned himself as Josh’s successor).
2. Interesting mention of “a pot to piss in.” We will see that theme further amplified in Gem of the Ocean.
3. The mixed metaphor of “wrassling (a poker game, a sexual innuendo)” vs.”wrestling with the devil” (see Ngugi wa Thiong’o) and three days and three nights (Jonah in the belly of the whale AND Jesus in the tomb.
4. Mention of Uncle Remus, a set of oral plantation fables and folktales “collected” and transcribed by Joel Chandler Harris, a white newspaper reporter.
5. Hertzberger, the furniture merchant was also the name of a prominent Dutch architect of the period, Herman Hertzberger.
6. Glickman, another furniture merchant, was the name of a prominent composer/ producer of film scores of the period, Mort Glickman.
7. Lyon’s lines about his music sound eerily similar to lines from Ma Rainey “I need something that gonna help me get out of the bed in the morning. Make me feel like I belong in the world.”
8. Scene Two opens with the first mention of the word “fence.” See playlist below.
9. A short note on the libation ceremony in the film production of Fences. In the film adaptation and in some stage productions you may notice Troy or Bono or Lyons pouring a few drops of whatever booze they are drinking onto the ground before taking a swallow. I have seen this most noticeably among Africans, pouring a few drops of a beverage on the ground before drinking as a tribute of sorts to the ancestors who have passed on. This tribute/ceremony does not occur in the Wilson script. I only thought about it while we discussed Buddy Bolden’s alcoholism in Seven Guitars. I found something about it here.
postscript. https://theundefeated.com/features/august-wilson-is-americas-most-undefeated-playwright/
List of characters and synopsis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fences_(play)
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0Lvs-e_eIXYPmItHweBOyfAwDJ-x1qwO
Session #1
There is a lot to unpack in all these plays and Fences is no exception.
I want to begin by highlighting an August Wilson quote from Samuel Freedman’s foreword to the boxed edition of Fences that I call “found poetry”:
"I found myself trying to figure out the intent of these lives around me. Trying to uncover the nobility and the dignity I might not have seen. Part of the reason I wrote Fences was to illuminate that generation, which shielded its children from all the indignities they went through.
I have to confess that until our group discussion laid it out on the table with multiple inputs, I hadn’t really plumbed the depths of the use of the play’s title “Fences” as a metaphor. That is what I’d like to address in this week’s post. But first, let’s recapitulate the pre-class notes:
Market forces that influenced the play: advisors recommended a play with a nuclear family, something “more accessible” than the previous plays.
Wilson’s insistence that the film adaptation have a black director was not well received by the entertainment industry.
Who is the central protagonist in Fences? Is it Troy Maxson, a “big man” who “fills all the empty spaces” in the lives of everybody around him? Or is it Rose, the constant, steadying influence, the glue that holds everything together and nudges the men around her into true manhood? Or maybe Cory, the future, the promise, the seemingly unflawed character?
The name of the play is Fences, but there are only occasional mentions of fences, or even of a single fence. Is the fence something central or merely incidental to the play? A metaphor?
What about Bono? He gets better as the play progresses, better at dominoes, better at being a husband to Lucille, better at being a friend to Troy and Rose. He progresses through the timeline of the play. His character develops.
This week we introduce Freytag’s Pyramid. A useful way to unpack and track the development of the play’s plot.
What is the play’s introduction? Does the Troy-Bono dialogue (with Rose entering part way through the conversation) at the beginning of Act 1 effectively set the scene for the entire play?
Rising action: Cory’s football hopes counter posed with Troy’s laments about his failed baseball career. Troy’s efforts to get a promotion to driver at work. Troy talks about past successful struggles with Death.
Climax: Troy’s announcement that Alberta is pregnant, followed by a heated discussion with Rose and Cory’s entrance and defense of Rose in what he perceives to be his father’s physical attack. Strike 2.
The Falling Action: Gabe gets arrested and institutionalized. Alberta dies in childbirth. We never see Alberta, but she is always lurking behind the scenes. Troy comes to grips with his new responsibility.
Resolution: Rose adopts Alberta’s daughter, Raynell. Cory leaves home and joins the Marines. Troy dies. Lyons goes to jail but returns for the funeral. Cory also returns home for Troy’s funeral. Gabriel is released by the hospital for the funeral. Bono organizes the pall bearers.
But back to the Fences metaphor. Bono says early in Act 2, “Some people build fences to keep people out . . . and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.” There is only one fence being built in the play, but the play has many fences, hence the plurality of the title. Troy and Bono met in prison, where they were “fenced” in, so to speak, in a hyper-controlled environment with rigid boundaries. That controlled space is also the place that gave Troy the discipline to learn the game of baseball, a sport with an infield for base running and an outfield generally enclosed and contained by a fence. Batting the ball “over the fence” is considered a score, a home run.
Troy considers his own marriage a type of prison to which he has been sentenced, a prison bounded by a fence, but at the end of an 18-year sentence, he wants freedom from “the same place’ where he has been standing still. He says towards the end of Act 2 Scent 1,
“Then I saw that girl . . . she firmed up my backbone. And I got to thinking that if I tried . . . I just might be able to steal second. Do you understand, after eighteen years I wanted to steal second. [. . . .] I stood on first base for eighteen years and I thought. . . well, goddamn it . . . go on for it.”
On the other hand, and extending the metaphor, “fencing” is the crime of buying and reselling stolen merchandise. The person who knowingly buys stolen goods in order to resell them is known as a “fence.” Troy, using baseball imagery, refers in a conversation with Rose to his adultery with Alberta as “stealing second base.” Troy himself, in this sense, is the “fence” who purchased stolen property (Alberta’s affection and attention) and resells it as his own image of himself.
We can debate about whether Troy was a sympathetic or a despicable character. Professor Shannon points out in her book, The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson, that Troy “reverses a stereotype found in portrayals of the black family: the conspicuously absent father,” but that he is also an “amalgam of blues personalities,” i.e., a railroad man in his infidelity, a bluesman who is depressed and finally, “womanless,” and a trickster (you pick the poison). You gotta read Professor Shannon’s book.
Last but not least, Riley Temple, in his book, Queen Ester’s Children Redeemed, included Troy Maxson in a reference to the Wilson Warriors, characters who “take a journey – a pilgrimage of redemption to find and to reconstitute who they might have been, and what they have become. . . . These men and women are warriors in fact, and not merely in spirit (but certainly in that as well), and have that Warrior courage. They make mistakes. Bad mistakes. They pay the price for them. Yet, they are not victims. They are fighters.” Temple includes in that list of warriors, from plays we have already completed, Boomer from Jitney and Levee from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Temple’s is another book you gotta read!
postscript. The 1950’s.
In 1954, in a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws segregating public schools for African-American and white children were unconstitutional. The case, known as Brown v. Board of Education overturned the Plessey v. Ferguson ruling, which was handed down 58 years earlier.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling was a landmark case that cemented the inspiration for the Civil Rights Movement.
The case was fought through the legal arm of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which had been fighting civil rights battles since the 1930s.
https://www.thoughtco.com/african-american-history-timeline-1950-1959-45442
1957
Congress establishes the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This is the first legislative act protecting the rights of African-Americans since the Reconstruction period by establishing the Civil Rights section of the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors are now able to get court injunctions against those who interfere with the right to vote. Under this act, the Federal Civil Rights Commission is also established.
Federal troops are sent to Little Rock, Arkansas by Dwight Eisenhower to enforce the desegregation of Central High School. The troops are also instructed to protect nine African-American students who are enrolled in the school and remain for the entire academic year.