Troy loves Rose, but in his mind her concerns are ancillary to his: He won’t be dependent on anyone, and his life is his own to determine and direct as he will, while she sometimes will just need to understand that. He cares for his younger brother Gabriel ( Mykelti Williamson), who has the mental capacity of a child after suffering a war injury. He refuses to lend money to his son from a previous marriage, Lyons ( Russell Hornsby), a jazz musician whose shows he refuses to see. He’s determined that Cory won’t play football, but will instead get a job and pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He’s in the process of becoming the first black driver in the sanitation department (never mind that he doesn’t have a driver’s license, and can’t read).

He’s full of laughter when he’s happy and a frightening presence when he’s not. He sees this, along with his hardscrabble early life and a series of other occurrences, as strikes that will add up to an out someday.īut Troy isn’t a defeatist, either he comes out swinging on just about everything. This bitterness serves as a kind of cipher to Troy for his life: He could have been something, but circumstances kept conspiring to get in his way. He played baseball when he was younger but aged out of relevance before the major leagues began drafting black players, and he’s still bitter about it. Troy is the sort of man who (as Rose puts it) fills every room in the house with his presence: funny, charming, full of tall tales, with a will that’s a force of nature. Denzel Washington and Stephen Henderson in Fences. He comes home to his wife Rose ( Viola Davis) and son Cory ( Jovan Adepo), a rising star athlete who’s being scouted to play college football. Fences is about a patriarch and the people around himĮvery day, Troy Maxson ( Denzel Washington) rides on the back of the garbage truck with his old friend and fellow collector Jim Bono ( Stephen Henderson). But its story also feels fresh, as if it were written to slot itself into the concerns of 2016: Questions of race and privilege, agency, and responsibility are all here. Such a hefty film was always fated for awards season, not just because of the subject matter - which feels eerily contemporary in 2016 - but also because plays adapted for the screen almost always feel a bit heavy and static, unsuitable for the breezy summer months.Īs a film, Fences is itself a bit static, a serious movie most interested in showcasing its stars’ outstanding performances. Now, with an adaptation written by Wilson (who died in 2005), Fences has made its way to the big screen, with Washington and Davis reprising their roles and Washington himself directing. Fences has been mounted several times since, including a revival on Broadway in 2010 starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis that garnered another three Tonys (Best Revival and one for each of its leads).

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