“Fences,” by legendary playwright August Wilson is opening at the Ritz Theatre in Sanford. The show is one in Wilson’s ten-play cycle that chronicles the 20th century Black experience in America, some of it reflecting his own.
“Fences” takes place in the late 1950s and centers around Troy, whose once-great baseball career was ended by the racism of the sports establishment of the time, and his struggle to be a good father and husband after what he sees as a crushing failure.
Director Kyona Levine Farmer describes the themes of this Pulitzer Prize Award-winning play and why this show is important, now: she says it’s a serious work that speaks fearlessly to deeply relatable experiences.
As a long-time actor and director in LA and New York, Levine Farmer says, “I was very familiar with August Wilson and the show, but I read the script and I was in pain! Someone said that August Wilson leaves blood on the script when he's done, because there are so many large themes that have to do with masculinity, with marriage, with parenting, and with even with friendship.”
“And there he hits on all of them so deeply that you do feel that although Troy is this African American man, and he's, you know, going through all these things,” she added, “there are a lot of universal themes that are in there, just regarding family and life and all of those issues.”
Living in a bubble
When asked if the risk of mounting a production that’s so unflinching could outweigh the value in these complicated times, Levine Farmer was unequivocal. “I think that it is more important than risky. I think that without revealing certain things, we live in a bubble,” she said.
Even in her own experience with the script, she said, she learned. “For me, going through the script, it is a predominantly male cast and hearing their points of view… sometimes I didn't really know if I wanted to know it all,” she laughed. “But I did feel enlightened by it. I felt like there were some things regarding men and what they go through and how they express their emotions and how it manifests - those are things I think are very revealing to women.”
Giving up too easily?
“Fences” speaks to something in particular that has been a growing concern both for her and her husband Vincent Farmer, the play’s executive producer. Levine Farmer said she’s noticed a societal trend in which families ostracize the troubled people among them. “Love ‘em from a distance,” her husband calls it. She doesn’t think it’s the best approach.
“There are so many complexities surrounding all of us, and how we express those traumas of our own, how we behave and act and react has to do with all that stuff,” noted Levine Farmer. “And sometimes our interpretation of a person's emotions or their actions, we don't really understand what's behind it.”
And that calls for a little grace, she said. Or maybe a lot.
“It doesn't mean that it's right or perfect,” she said. “But perhaps if we take a moment to kind of give some room to think about it, we can kind of understand them and have some more compassion.”
