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.
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.
Davis’ standout moment — the
scene that will absolutely, positively bring her an Academy Award — comes
during a far more dreadful encounter, when an initially stunned Rose responds
to an act of betrayal that she never, ever
saw coming. Davis is so wholly distraught — despair literally leaking from her
eyes, nose and mouth — that we can’t help fearing for her health. (Could she
really have dug that deeply into her soul, every night on Broadway, for 13
weeks? The mind doth boggle.)
The story, taking place on
several isolated days during the course of several months, begins after Troy
and Bono (Stephen Henderson) complete a typical work week, and share a bottle
of gin in the former’s back yard. Troy dutifully hands his pay packet to Rose,
an act that corresponds — almost to the second — with the arrival of Lyons
(Russell Hornsby), Troy’s elder son by a previous marriage.
Lyons, a struggling musician too
artistically focused to sully his hands with honest labor, has come to borrow
$10. This apparently frequent request triggers an exasperated speech from Troy
— the heavenward gazes from Rose, Bono and Lyons indicating that they’ve heard
it all many, many times before — about hard work, the folly of expecting
something for nothing, and various other grievances.
Troy, we learn fairly quickly,
harbors longtime resentments over past injustices prompted by the pre-Civil
Rights color barrier. He fancies himself a champion baseball player, insisting
that Jackie Robinson isn’t such a much, and laments the casual racism that
denied him a major league career. Troy also loves to boast about his previous
battles with Death and the Devil, larding such anecdotes — as Rose laughingly
points out — with ever more flamboyant details, during each re-telling.
(Mortal men haughtily challenging
celestial deities is a running theme in many of Wilson’s plays.)
The irony, of course, is that —
despite Troy’s constant grousing — his life is good, if humble. He has a home
and a loving wife; they’re raising a dutiful teenage son. Bono is a staunch
friend, and — complaints about the color barrier notwithstanding — he
successfully earns a promotion to become a driver, rather than a menial barrel
lifter.
But like too many men full of
themselves, more comfortable ranting about perceived injustices than embracing
life’s joys, Troy can’t get out of his own way. He’s a tragic figure of his own
creation, forever burdened by memories of an appalling upbringing and young
adulthood. At the age of 53, he has become a man who doesn’t deserve the
blessings that surround him.
Much of Fences feels like black America’s response to Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in terms of the
increasingly fractured family dynamic, and notably the conflict between father
and sons. But Troy also is a figure of Shakespearean tragedy akin to King Lear:
an absurdly, uncomfortably self-centered tyrant who repeatedly lashes out and,
ultimately, ruins everything that he cherishes.
The subtlety of Washington’s
densely layered performance is revealed by the degree to which we continue to
pity Troy — perhaps even sympathize with him — despite his increasingly
unforgivable acts. The desperation in Washington’s gaze, each time Troy is
unable to explain himself properly, is heartbreaking. He’s locked into a
pattern, convinced that every perceived slight is the work of Death or the
Devil.
To which end, the play also
revolves around his longstanding promise to enclose their back yard with a
fresh wooden fence: a chore that proceeds in maddening fits and starts. We can
imagine that Troy wants to metaphorically fence out his demons, but it’s just
as likely that Rose wants him to fence in
everything that she finds important ... including, most particularly, her
husband.
Equally heartbreaking is Mykelti
Williamson’s performance as Troy’s brother, Gabe, left mentally confused by a
savage head injury during his war service. As befits his archangelic namesake,
Gabe forever carries a battered trumpet, often shouting that Satan’s hell
hounds are nipping at his heels. Williamson’s blank expressions are a distressing
blend of innocence and utter confusion, Gabe often interrupting himself with
biblical non-sequiturs.
At first blush, Troy’s approach
to his brother seems tender and patient: a degree of sensitivity he doesn’t
waste on anybody else. Alas, as with so many other relationship dynamics in
this story, all is not as it seems. Among Troy’s many other failings, he
carries guilty secrets.
Jovan Adepo is a cauldron of
repressed emotions as Troy and Rose’s son Cory, a teenager who has spent his
entire life worshiping his authoritarian and often harsh father, and has just begun
to perceive that Dad probably doesn’t deserve the pedestal onto which he has
been placed. The many father/son encounters make us wince, as we watch
childhood reverence leak from Adepo’s hardening eyes, to be replaced by wary
suspicion and mounting hostility.
The explosive catalyst is Cory’s
success on the high school football team, which has attracted the attention of
college coaches. Troy, convinced that times haven’t changed, and that Cory is
destined for a career of benched frustration while white players take the
field, orders his son to quit the team. Will this be the final unjust demand
that prompts rebellion?
Hornsby, recognized from TV’s Grimm, oozes laid-back charm as Lyons:
every inch a silver-tongued smoothie with the patter of a born hustler.
Henderson’s performance is less
showy, but in many ways more deeply felt. Bono is cheerful and serene, the sort
of staunch friend who enjoys simply being in a buddy’s presence. Henderson, who
also played this role in the 2010 Broadway revival, makes it clear that Bono
has seen and learned more, in his longer lifetime, but never finds it necessary
to challenge Troy’s boastful exaggerations or bald conceit.
Unless.
Bono also makes it clear, during
a calm but mildly stern admonition, that he won’t hang around and watch, should
Troy’s behavior morph from gin-fueled bluster to genuine self-destruction.
Watching all this unfold is akin
to the proverbial slow-motion train wreck: We can’t avert our gaze, even as the
carnage escalates. Troy eventually crosses so many lines, that even he’s no
longer sure of his own footing. Alas — Washington’s expression both hardening
and becoming more haunted — pride prevents any degree of retreat.
This film’s many assets
notwithstanding, there’s no question that the pacing is leisurely, the
138-minute length an occasional stretch. As a director, Washington isn’t in a
hurry, obviously wanting us to savor every syllable of Wilson’s carefully
constructed dialogue. The proximity to live performances likely rendered pacing
moot in the stage production, but that attitude is a bit self-indulgent in this
film adaptation. Some viewers may chafe.
But if that’s a flaw — and many
will insist otherwise — it remains the only nit worth picking, and it’s
inconsequential. Fences is an
incredibly powerful film, from its opening scene to every throat-clutching
minute of its short epilog. And be sure to watch what happens with a background
gate, during the final character tableau: an incident of artistic serendipity that
Washington (in the press notes) swears was unplanned, and clearly reflects
Wilson’s gesture from beyond the grave.
Indeed,
I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment