Fences

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Summary: Fences: Responsibilites
Review: "Every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity, an obligation, every possession, a duty." This is how one man by the name of John D. Rockefeller Jr. interprets the term "Responsibility". It is the quality by which one is dependable. The way one chooses to deal with the course of their actions. Different people handle their responsibilities in different manors. Some voluntarily fulfill their duties, others find it a hassle they feel obligated to deal with.
"Fences," by August Wilson, is set in the mid-1960's. The storyline deals with a man and his family as they go through the struggles and conflicts of life.
Troy Maxson, the leading character in the play, is a good example of one who finds his responsibilities to be obligations. Troy is a fifty-three you old, black man who makes his meager living as a garbage man. He and his wife have two children. Troy looks at fatherhood as his duty. He brings home a paycheck, he puts food on the table, and he puts clothes on his childens' backs. He rarely shows any of the affection that one might hope he holds for his children. Perhaps this is because his father never showed him any love.
In Act I Scene I, we see Lyons, Troy's son from a previous marriage, come by to ask ten dollars of his father. His father reluctantly hands him the money after a drawn-out argument over Lyon's jobless lifestyle. Lyons and Troy have two very different views on life. Troy feels that his son, a man of thirty-four years, should be responsible for supporting himself with a steady job. Lyons disagrees, claiming he knows he has to eat, but he has to live too. He feels it is more his responsibility to enjoy life than to worry about where his next meal is coming from.
As the story progresses, we find Troy and Lyons discussing the ways of Troy's father in Act I Scene 4. Troy states that his father "cared nothing about no kids...all he wanted was for you to learn how to walk so he could start you to working." He then goes on to talk of how his father would sit down at the dinner table and eat until he was full enough to give his eleven kids whatever remained. Lyons finds this hard to believe declaring, "everybody care about their kids...that he should have just went on and left". Troy explains that his father knew he was trapped and he felt a responsibility towards his children. Without that, he would have walked out.
One can trace many similarities between Troy's behaviors back to his father's. They both feel the obligation to provide the bare necessities of life for their children. Neither happily volunteers to fulfill their parenthood duties. One difference between the two is that of the feelings Troy has for his children. He loves them, though he may not always express it.
To be responsible is to be able to answer for one's conduct and commitments. There are various ways to go about fulfilling these duties.

Rating:
Summary: Fences
Review: "Fences", by August Wilson, is a wonderful play full of reality, comedy, which has a sad ending. If you read this play while in class or with friends you will enjoy it. The author is basing the story on Troy Maxson and his family to basically show how black families in the 60s compare to black families now. In this two-act play, Troy Maxson is the husband of Rose, and the father of two young men by the name of Lyons and Cory. He also has a brother name Gabriel and a best friend name Bono. The main character Troy is basically the man of the house, everyone that lives under hes roof goes by his rules and obeys him. When Troy comes home, he expects dinner cooked and ready to eat. Does he get what he wants? Well that's why you should read this book. In the beginning of the play, their lifestyle was kind of boring. As you get further into the play, it gets interesting. The Maxson family basically ends up in a struggle trying to keep the family together. The message that I get from this story is that you can't trust everbody, no matter how long you've known them. I think one of the things that makes this play nice is how it relates to African-American families. It gives you an actual idea of what black families have to go through, and what is spoken in their homes. If you are one of those curious people who would like to know how most African-Americans live, you should read this book. If you are the type of person who doesn't really like to read, you should just try it and you just might enjoy it like I did.

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Summary: August Wilson's, "Fences"
Review: "Fences," by August Wilson, is a wonderful mix of drama and comedy that emphasizes the tribulations and confusions people were going through, during the changing sixties. In this two-act play, Troy Maxson is a middle-aged African American who is struggling to raise a son, keep a family together and deal with the new desires and needs everybody is beginning to feel as social standards slowly begin to change. As a child growing up, Troy did not have a great father figure, and he was not able to persue his dream of becoming a great baseball player as he grew older, because of racial limitations of the time period. Now as things begin to change for the better, he is still afraid of these limitations and overcoming them. His son wants to play football, but Troy doesn't want him to. He wants him to get a job and become good with his hands. As he refuses to let his son play, he pushes him away. He begins to push his wife away too, because he feels he needs his own space and has new desires. This play becomes a struggle for Troy to try to pass on morals he thinks are right and to be a proud man in a time where hatred is strong and boundaries are being broken. Troy Maxson is having to change his ways according to change and he grew up doing what he could to survive, so changing after so many years of living a certain way to survive is harder than anything he has had to deal with before. Will he come out of it successful?

A wonderful blend of characters, hysterical, beautiful, bold, courageous and passionate; this play is sure to win your favor.

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Summary: August Wilson's Best Work
Review: "Fences" is a wonderful drama that can relate to all people. The levels in the play are great because all of the dramatic characters have a comedic side, which balances the story.

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Summary: Opportunity and Obligation
Review: A Raisin in the Sun is a great play that reads just as well as seeing a live performance.

The Younger family is living in a run-down apartment looking forward to a check that is coming as a result of the patriarch's death. The story revolves on how this check should be spent. Lena Younger (Mama), the beneficiary, wants to buy a house or her extended family and put her daughter through medical school. Travis Younger, the son, wants to open a liquor store, and Ruth Younger (Travis's wife) wants Mama to indulge herself.

This story is filled with good intentions that have bad results, something that everyone can relate to. The problems in the family are accentuated by the prospect of money. Each issue can be solved with the use of the benefit check, yet it is not large enough to solve every problem. The money emphasizes issues that might otherwise have been ignored while the family went about their daily lives trying to make ends meet. This catalyst brings pride and disappoint, opportunity and obligation to the forefront of this family's life.


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Summary: CM says: A portrayal of races in the 20th cent.
Review: August Wilson's Fences is the story of Troy Maxson, a sanitation worker, who is a hard nose but well to do man. The book covers Troy's interactions with his children and these relationships are the center of Wilson's themes. When these relationship's are strained Troy tenses up and eventually boils over with his outburst at second son Cory. Themes to look for are responsibility vs. love and sports metaphors. Overall this book is a rather negatiove book that lacks perspective to be an accurate portrayal of the mid 20th century.

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Summary: FENCES IS A GOOD BOOK.
Review: From the opening scene we as audience members are dropped whole into the world of the characters in August Wilson's classic play. The dialect of the characters, the hints of jargon, and the references that aren't explained but simply ARE allow us to be immersed in his setting. This back porch, with its visible foibles (exposed icebox, half-built fence) make Troy Maxson, his family, and his friends into new beings that become larger than their own lives--and very like our own lives.

There is nothing in this play we don't all have to face from day to day. Work, marriage, family disputes, mental illness, adultery, violence, and more events populate this play as surely as the characters do. Yet the clear, Sophoclean way they are addressed makes them matter to us in an immediate, powerful way.

The play is broken up into two acts, comprising eleven scenes. The first ten take place over a span of a few months, while the final provides an epilogue some years later. Some modern theatre purists will balk at this many divisions, and yet the way Wilson makes them pop will let an audience that loves theatre to both enjoy and understand what's happening to the characters.

This is a difficult piece of theatrical literature, yet one of the most important and compelling of the last twenty years. For all its faluts (slipshod editing, internal contradictions, great length) it remains a valuable play, and one that hasn't received nearly the acclaim it deserves.

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Summary: Real people, real world
Review: This is a great play. This is possibly August Wilson's greatest venture into the world of playwrights. Originally he was a poet, which provides an excellent twist for the play. He implies poetic feel into the play itself, but it is also well-balanced. About the play, it is a wonderful and thought-provoking piece about one family and their attempts, hopes, and fears about making it in America. It creates many interesting features such as "baseball" as a form of communication (in the sense that the family is sort of tied together through an interest in the sport). Wilson is a combination of Tennessee Williams and the author of A RASIN IN THE SUN (who's name always escapes me). When reading this, focus on character interactions between father and son. See how it reflects the stress on each respective character. I have no doubt that you will enjoy the play, but beware, if you are someone who has the inability to saw through a thick southern African-American accent, this book may not be the best for you.