Broadway's Hits and Misses of the Spring
Fences
Of all the plays in August Wilson's cycle about the black experience in 20th century America, this drama about a former Negro Leagues baseball player whose career frustrations spill over into his family relations was Wilson's greatest popular success. And yet it's one of his less interesting plays: a relatively straightforward family soap opera that doesn't have the mythic poetry or historical echoes of his later, greater works. But it provides a great platform for Denzel Washington to show off his stage chops. Truth be told, there's a little too much Training Day macho bluster in Washington's take on the role — James Earl Jones, who starred in the 1987 original, had more tragic grandeur — but he gives a fiery, charismatic performance and gets fine support from Viola Davis and veteran Wilson interpreter Stephen McKinley Henderson.