Fences!

When I initially started reading Fences, I was not so enthused. In fact, I thought the characters and situations were incredibly clichéd. BUT, as I read on it grew on me, particularly with the introduction of Gabriel.

The characters were generally very stereotypical, (not to say that they weren’t interesting or were underdeveloped, I definitely cared and wanted to see where the play went) but Troy and Cory’s relationship (the simple father who can’t and won’t understand his son’s dreams) rubbed me the wrong way. Rose however, despite being walked all over in many respects, was a strong character. She gambled, for one, which was an interesting addition and definitely not stereotypical. As the play went on the characters got less and less stereotypical and much more complex.
Wilson does an exceptional job of revealing back- story. He doesn’t have Troy just tell it like it is. His biases towards Cory’s baseball playing and his history with Bono are revealed slowly and subtly through conversations that lead naturally to such reveals. Wilson also does this with the plot. For example, we find out that Troy went to Cory’s baseball coach and told him he couldn’t play anymore as Rose finds out, letting the audience feel the same shock and dismay that Rose would feel at that time.

Wilson also did a good job of introducing the tensions between the characters right off the bat. Immediately, despite Troy’s constant profession of love to his wife, the audience can see that he doesn’t really listen to her. He sometimes even completely ignores her. Wilson has Bono introduce the “other woman” early on, but we get easily distracted by his over the top expressions of devotion to Rose that it moves to the back of our minds until it is reintroduced later. This is a subtle and effective tactic.
Bono idolizes Troy initially so much because of what a good person he was, particularly related to his relationship with his Rose. As Troy becomes more and more the man he didn’t want to be, he loses all that he has kept dear (Bono, Rose).

I particularly liked the inclusion of song into the play and thought it was an interesting aspect. Rose’s song about fences is obviously very applicable to the play and foreboding with the lyrics “Jesus, be a fence around me every day. Jesus, I want you to protect me as I travel on my way.” Also telling that it takes Troy so long to actually build the fence and by the time he has he has already hurt her so its symbolic protection is worthless.
Troy’s song about Blue is forlorn and melancholy, also mirroring the story. Blue was “mighty true” and a “good old dog,” but Blue dies. It is as if the good man Troy had initially set out to be, in opposition to his father, died as his troubles caught up with him.
Rose ends up being the most reasonable and mature character in the family. I could definitely sense of lot of Wilson’s poetic roots, particularly in Rose’s last explanatory feminist speech in which she tells Cory that disrespecting his father isn’t going to make him a man.

I’m a little bit confused by the ending, but I like it? I like the auditory element that just moments before Cory and Raynell were singing Troy’s favorite song, then contrasted with Gabriel’s subsequent lack of music. Wilson writes it in that Gabriel in fact “howls,” like a dog, or in a wail of despair. It is eerie and ambiguous and that is always good :)

All in all, I suppose the things that worked for me were the incorporation of music and the revealing of tensions between characters right off the bat. I also appreciated the subtle inclusion of back- story. I'm looking forward to seeing it live!