So I realize this is a little late to be putting up, but for some reason I completely forgot to post my blog! Sorry! Better late than never I suppose…
I would have to say that I really enjoyed this production of Fences. Was it perfect the whole way through? No. But then again, no show is perfect. The good moments were good enough though that I was very satisfied with the end result. I will say, I am a person who tends to see more of the good in a production rather than the bad, I guess when I go see a show, I really want to like it! But I still think this was a good production. I do wish I would have seen it before reading it, but I’ll live.
One of my favorite moments in the show that I felt worked better on stage than on the page was the moment just after Troy tells Cory to leave. In the script, all that is there are the words. Troy says, “I can’t taste nothing. Hallelujah! I can’t taste nothing no more” (Act II, Sc. Iv). When I read that, there didn’t seem to be a lot of remorse about “losing” his son. After that, he switches to taunting death. I honestly didn’t have a lot of sympathy for Troy because he seemed to be devoid of love for his son. But in the live production, there was this beautiful moment in this speech where the man playing Troy almost broke down. He cried, his voice broke, and he actually seemed truly upset that his son had just left and his life was crumbling around him. In that one moment, I suddenly felt sorry for Troy. I don’t think I had really connected to him much before then. I viewed him as rather heartless and selfish. But at that moment he suddenly became human. I really felt something for him. It was so…touching. It really showed the difference an actor can make to the overall turn out of a show. It was a really cool moment for me.
Something I debated with a lot of people was the portrayal of Cory. I would agree, I felt the actor in this particular production was not the strongest, but I wouldn’t say I hated him. I thought he actually did a good job of capturing what some might refer to as teenage angst. He had the right amount of whine to his voice, but still took his problems very seriously. I think where he could have improved was in his delivery of those fight scenes. There, he just seemed a bit flat to me. yes, he was angry, but there needed to be more passion. There was a good balance to the things that a teenager find serious, he was angry enough about the football stuff. It was when the family began dealing with more serious problems: Troy’s cheating, a new daughter, etc. I wanted more from Cory here, more when he was really laying into his father, and he lacked something there. Honestly, the actually stage combat portions seemed weak because he didn’t really have a lot of energy. However, what I did love was his work in the last scene. I know a lot of people found him too stiff in the end, but I thought he was perfect. He lacked just the right amount of emotion, so that when he did suddenly break down, it was all the more powerful. I think August Wilson got it right, having Cory become a Marine. It provided an amazing contrast to what he had been like before, and allowed us to see the intense change in him. That moment when he actually broke down during the song and showed the emotion he had been holding back throughout the scene was so much more touching to me. I really loved it.
All in all, a well done production, beautiful set, and they handled the language/dialect very well.
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