‘Fences’: Denzel Washington On The Award-Nominated Film And August Wilson’s Universal Stories

Fences opened on Christmas Day and stars Oscar-winner Denzel Washington and Oscar-nominated Viola Davis. They both have received Golden Globe nominations for their roles in the film, that is based on a play by August Wilson. Viola Davis has already received a Critics Choice award for her performance. Both Washington and Davis also starred in the Broadway production of Fences and won Tony Awards for their performances. Denzel Washington directed the film as well.

Fences is one of 10 plays that make up a series of plays written by Wilson that are referred to as the Pittsburgh Cycle. Each of the 10 plays depicts the African-American experience in a different decade. The series received two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1987 for Fences, and the film adaptation is receiving lots of Oscar buzz.

Although it tells the story of an African-American family, Denzel explained to Philly that it’s about some experiences that are common to people of all races.

“The themes are universal. When people ask me what do I want audiences to get from Fences, I say it depends on what they bring to it. It depends upon who you are.

“Are you the son? Are you the father? Are you the mother? Are you the daughter? Are you the brother? Everybody’s got something in their family, some issue, some relationship that needs tending to.”

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Viola Davis concurred with Washington in her interview with NPR.

“I think that when people come to see this they will relate to it in a way that it’s [not just] an African-American experience — it’s a story about a family and it’s a story about a flawed man who is at the center of this family who doesn’t understand the extent to which he is destroying it. And I think that that really is at the heart of who we are as people and what we are as family.”

Fences is the story of Troy and Rose Maxson, who live in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. The adulterous Troy is a sanitation worker who is angry about a life that is less than he had hoped for in his youth. Over the course of the story, Rose realizes what she sacrificed as a result of her choice to stay in her marriage. Troy is also a harsh, critical father to his two sons. Fences doesn’t present Troy as a bad person though, but rather as a man trying to deal with a great sense of humiliation.

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Denzel Washington describes Troy’s arc as “from hell to hallelujah.” He explains that the story starts with him saying “aw hell” about everything, but ends with him proclaiming “hallelujah.”

Fences is only the first August Wilson play that Washington will be bringing to the big screen. All 10 of the Pittsburgh Cycle plays will be made into film, and he will serve as executive producer for all of them. They will all be HBO productions. Long before any involvement in August Wilson plays, Denzel was able to spend a day with the playwright. At the playwright’s invitation, Washington spent a day with him in Seattle in 2005. He describes it as a “lovely, lovely day” spent talking about Wilson’s process. The opportunity to work on Fences came to him through Constanza Romero, August Wilson’s widow, in 2014 while Denzel was working on Raisin in the Sun. He had already begun working on Fences. Following one of the shows she told him that his estate would like him to “shepherd his other nine films.” He said yes.

The next of the Pittsburgh Cycle plays that will be adapted to film is Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is set in the 1920s.

[Featured Image by Universal Pictures]