August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of one African American family's experience in mid-twentieth century Pittsburgh is a powerful and unflinching work. The Oscar-nominated James Earl Jones claimed that the story 'demands all of what this man is, and it asks its actors to make a commitment larger than you would make even in a Shakespeare play'. After tonight's first Playhouse showing, you feel inclined to believe him.
Lenny Henry takes the role of Troy Maxson and carries on his broad, high shoulders the terrible weight of a static existence. Seeing himself as a man who has not forged ahead in the world - or, rather, has not been allowed to forge ahead - life has disappointed him, and we believe it. His long limbs bound and swing around the stage as he paces his yard like a caged beast, moving from tender caresses of his devoted wife to rage-filled swings at reality in a second. Such volatile capriciousness leaves nothing to the imagination: this is a man deeply troubled by matters both his own and far beyond his control and the conjunction of the two, we fear, only leads down one road. His loving wife is portrayed excellently by Tanya Moodie who acts as the anchor to which the characters are moored. Possessed of a robust willingness to find and focus on the good in each new day, to imagine the play without her is to imagine the other individuals destroying themselves, and each other, instantly. She never could, of course, be removed, but the sense is there all along: Rose is the reasonable, loving centre of the play, and much of what is good springs from, or is nurtured by, her.
Most affecting of all, however, is the young Ashley Zhangazha. He plays Cory, the son of Rose and Troy, and from the moment we hear he and his father exchange words, there is released into the air a poignant tension that reaches points of almost unbearable sadness. The interaction between the two must, necessarily, play a part in this - the way in which Troy doles out his hard-earned 'wisdom' only inches from his son's face, or the motif of the two of them needing to build a fence for the yard, create scenes of father-son conflict through which the words not spoken scream above those actually uttered. But it's hard to imagine a more touching portrayal than Zhangazha's of the uncomprehending son; the young man, possessed of talent and promise and the capacity to love facing an elder who, right from the outset, appears hellbent on seeing the sins of the father visited upon his boy. It's in everything Cory does: the way his brow furrows deeply as he tries to argue; the sigh that accompanies submission to the paternal bombardment; and even the way he holds himself; his fists clenched and arms stiff as if braced for impact seem to tell of an unceasing tension within; a tension, we suspect sadly, that can only come from the terrible, dawning realisation that in his father he has an adversary where he yearns to have an ally.
It is almost enough to make us want to despise Troy, but Wilson's protagonist is very much an antihero and there are, indeed, unmistakably heroic overtones to the character. To speak of them here would be to risk revealing too much to playgoers unfamiliar with Wilson's work. It is not too much to point out, though, that the lives chronicled on stage are done so against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, and the history of our bruised and battered lead reveals some of the origins of the blows he has had to take. Needless to say, he has seen much hardship.
The other characteristic of the play most deserving of mention after the performances is the dialogue. Wilson came to the conclusion relatively early in his career that the sounds and cadences of the language in the Pittsburgh neighbourhoods he knew so well should be utilized in his work. He once said that 'I didn't have to change it [, instead] I began to respect it', and it is a fact that we should be thankful for, as the speech throughout is marvelous and does a fine job, not only of fixing the convincing tone, but also of illuminating some of the lighter moments; porch-side bantering, affectionate sweet-talking and, most obvious of all, music, are all delivered in that wonderful idiom that falls so agreeably upon the ear. As Wilson himself explained, he 'wanted to place this culture on stage in all its richness and fullness and to demonstrate its ability to sustain us in all areas of life and endeavour and through profound moments of our history in which the larger society has thought less of us than we have thought of ourselves'.
You can't but conclude that he succeeded.