Five stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and mild profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.28.16
Big-screen adaptations of famous
plays can be problematic; it’s often difficult to “open up” the drama, in order
to avoid a claustrophobic sense that the result is simply a filmed stage
production.
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| Although Troy (Denzel Washington, center) has long promised to enclose his back yard with a spiffy wooden fence, best friend Bono (Stephen Henderson, left) cheerfully expresses his doubts that it'll ever happen. Wanting to demonstrate otherwise, Troy orders teenage son Cory (Jovan Adepo) to start sawing the lumber. |
As a director, Denzel Washington
and production designer David Gropman haven’t done much to expand this play’s
original stage tableau; most of the action still takes place in the back yard
of the tiny home that Troy Maxson shares with his wife Rose, although the film
also brings us inside, where we see how hard she works to keep things clean and
tidy. Occasional establishing shots give a sense of mid-1950s Pittsburgh, and
we spend a bit of time with Troy and best friend Bono, making their rounds as
garbage collectors.
But it really wasn’t necessary to
enhance any of these settings, because the film’s secret weapon is the same element
that made the play a Tony Award-winning hit during its initial 1987-88 Broadway
run, and subsequently led to a Pulitzer Prize: playwright August Wilson’s
mesmerizing dialogue. Many of the lines — particularly those spoken by Troy —
have a lyrical, attention-grabbing cadence that transfixes us just as much as
the drama itself.
Fences was revived for a 13-week Broadway run in
the spring of 2010, once again earning multiple Tony Awards, including a pair
for stars Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. They’ve reprised their roles for
this film adaptation, and remained utterly faithful to Wilson’s original
script: No “adaptor” has messed with the dialogue.
The result is an enormously
powerful showcase for Wilson, Washington and Davis.
The two stars have numerous
impressive scenes, and it’s difficult to cite one over the others. But, days
later, I remain drawn to a moment when Troy shares an incident from his
childhood: an event that precipitated his running away from home, at age 14, to
escape from a dangerous father who might have killed him. In a role that’s
given to deliciously baroque, self-indulgent speeches and explosions of
short-tempered anger, Washington’s handling of this scene resonates for its
contrast.
He relates the anecdote quietly,
its impact still affecting Troy deeply, so many years later. As an audience, we
dare not even breathe: just as transfixed as the characters listening to Troy
speak. I’ve not seen a moment to match this degree of softly narrated trauma
since Billy Bob Thornton’s first soliloquy, in 1996’s Sling Blade.
