Producing Organization:Pasadena PlayhouseTheatre: Pasadena Playhouse
Pasadena, California
September 2006-October 2006
Director: Sheldon Epps
Designers:Sets, Gary L. Wissmann
lighting, Paulie Jenkins
costumes, Dana Rebecca Woods
sound, Pierre Dupree
But the real acting surprise is Orlando Jones as Troy's war-wounded brother, who now believes he is the Archangel Gabriel. Unhampered by this symbolic baggage, Jones demonstrates an intensity and emotional accessibility hitherto unhinted-at in a score of movie and TV comedies. Brain-damaged characters usually suffer as thesps go overboard on physical and vocal quirks, but Jones' Gabriel is a model of expressiveness and precise choices.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117931456.html?categoryid=33&cs=1
The single-set porch and yard literally function as a stage for Troy's stories, told with such animation and force by Fishburne that the audience feels present within the Maxson's property. To further facilitate that intimacy, Gary L. Wissmann's scenic design pushes the action downstage: the porch ends near center stage, and the yellow, thatch lawn rakes downward toward the front row. Additionally, the mostly realistic set reveals a secret from the start: an expressionistic two-foot-wide crack runs horizontally across the two-story Maxson house, splitting the top and bottom halves and announcing that this home is already broken. Upstage, some Hill District tenements appear, but their visual separation keeps them distanced from our minds. Unlike Miller's A View from a Bridge, Fences remains a strictly family affair here, without anyone from the tenements witnessing Troy's wrestling with devils and death. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theatre_journal/v059/59.2shaw.html
Producing Organization: Geva TheatreTheatre: Geva Theatre
Rochester, New York
May 2009-June 2009
Director: Mark Cuddy
Designers: Set: Shaun Motley
Costumes: Emilio Sosa
Lighting: Dawb Chiang
Sound: Ian Hildreth
Tony Todd, with his unforgettable, modulated, gravelly voice, was a superbly physical Troy Maxson. He had his audience in the palm of his hand from the opening scene in which he and Wiley Moore (as Bono) drink whiskey and Troy brags about his wife and their vigor as lovers. Like Troy Maxson, Todd is a master storyteller; in one of the most unforgettable scenes in this show, Troy reminisces about his abuse at the hands of his own father. Todd is known for his movie roles (Candyman, The Rock), but he is a first-rate actor, and here in Rochester he left nothing of August Wilson’s script on the page.
http://emsworth.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/august-wilsons-fences-at-geva-theatre-in-rochester/
Pittsburgh's Hill District in 1957 provides the setting for the story, and designer Shaun Motley provides the scenery, an immersive set made up of large-scale archival photos that act as a backdrop to the Maxsons' towering, three-dimensional house. "Fences" is all about metaphors - the fences of the title, the baseball themes that pepper the script the most obvious of them - and the set is one itself. On the one side of the stage stands a tree with a baseball tied to it, a ball that clearly saw a lot of use in its day, but which pointedly gets little action during the play. On the other side of the set three posts stick up, waiting for the fence that will be a long time coming. It's carefree dreams vs. work-a-day realities, and for Troy Maxson, the latter have become too stifling.
http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/entertainment/stage/2009/05/THEATER-REVIEW-Fences/
Producing Organization: Penumbra Theatre CompanyTheatre: Minnesota Theatre
Saint Paul, Minnesota
August 2008-September 2008
Director: Lou Bellamy
Designers: C. Lance Brockman (Scenic Designer)
Don Darnutzer (Lighting Designer)
Martin Gwinup (Sound Designer)
Mathew J. LeFebvre (Costume Designer)
Like Gabriel, Troy wages his own spiritual battle in Fences; throughout, the character is convinced he's fighting for his life with the angel of Death itself. What seems, at first, like just another colorful story crosses into the more ambiguous territory of shared delusion; more than once, the audience hears the sound of dogs (hell-hounds?) approaching and sees a ghostly light encroach upon the entrance to the house. Troy fights these harbingers off more than once in the course of the play, but still death touches him closely through the fates of others.
http://www.mnartists.org/article.do?rid=204607
Producing Organization:
Theatre: Angus Bowmer Theatre
Ashland, Oregon
Febuary 2008-July 2008
Director: Leah C. Gardiner
Designers: Scott Bradley, Set
Dawn Chiang, Light Design
Michael Keck, Sound
Charles Robinson plays Troy Maxson, a father figure of King Lear-like proportions, who struts and rages in his kingdom - a Pittsburgh home in the late '50s. Imperfect and endlessly interesting, Troy is a good man, a flawed man and a man who fights himself every day. Robinson gives a robust, deeply felt performance that balances beautifully with that of Shona Tucker as Troy's bright, grounded wife and Cameron Knight as Troy's beaten-down teenage son.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/20/DDIS11AJJQ.DTL
Scott Bradley's funky Pittsburgh Hill District set, lighting design by Dawn Chiang and Michael Keck's subtle and haunting music effectively complement the verbal fireworks.
Producing Organization: Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
Theatre: Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
San Francisco, California
March 2008 - April 2008Director: Stanley E. Williams.
Designers: Set, Robert Broadfoot
Costumes, Rose Plant
Williams heightens the parallels to Arthur Miller's masterpiece with his staging of Troy's long speeches - reminiscences of hardships, tall tales of wrestling with Death, the terrible story of his father. Williams treats them like Miller's use of Loman's flashbacks and fantasies, to break up the realism. As each speech begins, Jacob Petrie's lights dim to an artificial dusk, isolating Troy in a hazy spotlight, with Morris standing downstage center, speaking directly to the audience.
It's a choice that separates Troy from the other characters, gives the speeches a slightly wearying uniformity and undermines the dramatic flow. "Fences" is firmly fixed in its time - as reflected in Robert Broadfoot's finely detailed backyard set and Rose Plant's period costumes - and much of its power derives from its specificity. Even Wilson's usual oddball shamanistic character is reduced, for that purpose, to the relatively minor role of Troy's brain-damaged war veteran brother (a sweetly childlike Hosea Simmons Sr.)http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/24/DDRUVMCPA.DTL
Acting is strong all-around, particularly when the long setup of the first act pays off explosively in the second, as consequences of Troy’s actions, both long ago and more recent, begin to reverberate among his loved ones.
Alex Morris (who appeared on TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle”) provides the show’s strong anchor, showcasing Troy’s conflicts and complexities, and how his pride has blinded him to the needs of others.
Elizabeth Carter as Troy’s wife Rose shines particularly at the show’s climax, as does Axel Alvin Jr. as their son Cory, who’s fenced in by Troy’s negativity about his future as an athlete. As Gabriel, Troy’s trumpet-playing brother whose war wounds had long-lasting mental effects, Hosea Simmons Jr. stands out
http://www.examiner.com/a-1302718~Review__Lorraine_Hansberry_Theatre_builds_strong__Fences_.html
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