Fences Reviews
Washington Post- Somewhat Recommended
"...Doug Brown, KenYatta Rogers and Jefferson A. Russell provide workmanlike portrayals of Troy's best friend, Troy's elder son and the horn-blowing Gabriel, respectively, with Brown doing an especially good job of showing us how the friend, Jim Bono, navigates in Troy's big shadow. But the dry spells on this evening, unfortunately, tend to reveal some of the holes in Wilson's "Fences.""
MetroWeekly- Highly Recommended
"...A symphony of drama in several movements, August Wilson's Fences rises, falls, and rises mellifluously. In Timothy Douglas' astute new production at Ford's Theatre, Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning text supplies the moving range of emotional notes that tell the story of trash collector Troy Maxson (Craig Wallace) and stalwart wife Rose (Erika Rose) struggling to hold their family together in racially segregated 1950s Pittsburgh."
DCTheatreScene- Recommended
"...The story's set up is splendid and Wilson's language is customarily enthralling-from Troy's banter with his longtime friend Bono (pleasingly portrayed by Doug Brown) and his rascally come-ons to Rose to his workingman's dissertations on responsibility, manhood, life, death and everything in between. The man tells stories like other men pound anvils and in true Wilsonian fashion the monologues sing. Troy's tales of "wrassling with Death," making a deal with the devil and the glimpses of his sharply tragic youth in the sharecropper South in the decades after the end of slavery are beautifully wrought, engaging and horrifying."
BroadwayWorld- Highly Recommended
"...Admittedly, this Ford's Theatre production of Fences operates in the shadow of a certain recently-released, Oscar-winning film version, but what of it? August Wilson is meant to be savored live; he can't be contained in a damned DVD box. And with local heroes like Wallace and Rose as the headliners, it's not to be missed."