Fences Background & History

1. Fences Background & History

2. Overview • August Wilsonand The Century Cycle • Historical Setting of Fences • Fences in Production

3. August Wilson and the Century Cycle Fences (1985) is one of 10 plays August Wilson wrote to chronicle ordinary African-American family life from 1900-2000. This group of plays is know as the Century Cycle, or Pittsburgh Cycle. Fences represents the middle of the cycle: the 1950s.

4. The Century Cycle • In the Century Cycle, Wilson dramatizes African American experience and heritage in the twentieth century, with a play for each decade. • Almost all of the 10 plays are set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where he was born (in 1945) andgrew up.

5. The Century Cycle • Wilson's extraordinary lifework-completed just before his death in October 2005. • August Wilson's Century Cycle is "one of the most ambitious dramatic projects ever undertaken" (The New York Times). • Widely acclaimed, Fences went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

6. Think: • What might the Century Cycle reveal about the African American experience that 10 unrelated plays by the same playwright might not?

7. Fences Fences presents a slice-of-life in a black tenement in (Pittsburgh?) set in the late 1950s through 1965. The main character, Troy Maxson, is a garbage collector who has taken great pride in keeping his family together and providing for them. Troy's rebellion and frustration set the tone for the play as he struggles for fairness in a society which seems to offer none.

8. Fences (cont.) • The father and son relationship between Troy and Cory is explored as a central part of the drama. Their relationship becomes complicated by strong feelings of pride and independence on both sides. • Fences is both unique to the plight of African Americans and universal in its depiction of the human condition. The father-son and husband-wife relationships cross both unique and universal boundaries.

9. Fences: a response to Death of a Salesman • Fences can be read as August Wilson’s answer to Arthur Miller’s classic American play, Death of a Salesman. • Death of a Salesman details the downward spiral of one man who is unable, through internal and external forces, to attain his American Dream.

10. Connections: Fences and Death of a Salesman • Both plays are set post-WWII • Death of a Salesman was written in 1949 and set in its present day. • Fences is set in the 1950s, completing the middle decade of the Century Cycle • Both protagonists have a powerful, if faulty, sense of self of mythic proportions. • Both protagonists battle with internal and external demons. • Each play explores the relationship between the flawed father and his sons.

11. FencesIntroductory Commentary • “August Wilson…has taken the responsibility of telling the tale of the encounter of the released black slaves with a vigorous and ruthless growing America decade by decade. Fences encompasses the 1950s and a black family trying to put down roots in the slag slippery hills of a middle American urban industrial city…”

12. Think: • What do you think is meant by the “vigorous and ruthless growing America”? • What growing opportunities exist for African Americans in the 1950s? • What ruthlessness might be encountered along with this growth?

13. Death of a SalesmanIntroductory Commentary • “The Depression of the 1930s seemed to break the promises American had made to its citizens. The stock market crash of 1929, it was assumed, ended a particular version of history: optimistic, confident. The American Dream faded. And yet, not so. Myths at potent as that, illusions with such a purchase on the national psyche, are not so easily denied.”

14. Think: • How is the African American psyche distinct from the national psyche? What has shaped it over time?(Psyche: the soul, spirit, and mind) • How does the idea of America’s “promise” apply differently to African Americans?

15. Death of a Salesman Commentary (continued) • In an immigrant society, which has, by definition, chosen to reject the past, faith in the future is not a matter of choice. When today fails to offer the justification for hope, tomorrow becomes the only grail worth pursuing. When Charley, Willy Loman’s next-door neighbor, say that “a salesman is got to dream,” he sums up not only Willy’s life but a central tenet of his culture.

16. Think: • How is the African American experience distinct from the American immigrant experience in the 20th century? • What might a “central tenet” of African American culture be, based on its unique history?

17. As you read Fences, question: • What light does the play shed on the idea of the American Dream? • How is the pursuit of the American Dream unique for African Americans? (Later, we will compare this to the American Dream as explored in Death of a Salesman)

18. Historical Background for Fences

19. The Negro Baseball Leagues The first black professional baseball team was the Cuban Giants in 1885, but the teams played as independent ball clubs until the first black league was organized in 1920. That year Rube Foster, the father of black baseball, founded the Negro National League. During their existence, the Negro Leagues played eleven World Series (1924-27, 1942-48) and created their own All-Star game (1933-48) that became the biggest black sports attraction in the country.

20. The End of an Era • Jackie Robinson was signed in 1945 to the Montreal Royals. He was the first African American to sign to a major league baseball team. After Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, the Negro Leagues began to lose their talent to the major leagues. With the talent, the fan base departed. The last Negro League shut down operations in 1962.

21. Satchel Paige Josh Gibson Cool Papa Bell Jackie Robinson

22. Fences in Production

26. August Wilson and his Influences

27. The Making of a Playwright • August Wilson’s influences include Jazz, the Blues, and the tales of older folks in his community • In 1969 Wilson co-founded Black Horizons Theater • Influenced by Amiri Baraka, Malcolm X and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s • First a poet, Wilson tried his pen as a playwright in the mid-1970s • His first successful play was Jitney, followed by Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 1981. • Fences opened in New York in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama

28. August Wilson’s Later Life • Fences won a Tony award, a Pulitzer prize, and a Drama Circle Award. • August Wilson has been called "the foremost dramatist of the American black experience" and "the most acclaimed playwright of his time” • Wilson moved to Seattle in 1990 and developed a close working relationship with the Seattle Repertory Theater. • Wilson died in 2005 a Swedish Hospital from liver cancer. • In October 2005, the Virginia Theater in New York was renamed the August Wilson Theater. It is the first Broadway Theater to be named after an African American.