Fences review – August Wilson’s classic family drama is as smart as paint

Leeds Playhouse Daniel Bailey’s dynamic production fizzes with jazz and moments of possibility amid taut scenes of thwarted ambition and harsh realities in 1950s America Five years on from their excellent production of Jitney , Leeds Playhouse and Headlong return to August Wilson’s Pittsburgh cycle of plays with a revival of his 1985 classic Fences.

It’s another drama of family, masculinity and thwarted ambitions, painting national issues of race and inequality on a domestic canvas. Set in the 1950s, the focus is the African American Maxson family and its patriarch, Troy: a trash-collector, former convict and one-time baseball player robbed of professional success by the colour of his skin.

Ray Fearon is horribly compelling as this tragic figure, a man made monstrous by circumstance. His anger at the world seems to radiate across his wide shoulders, which he braces against the anticipated onslaught. Raised in hardship and denied his dreams, Troy rains this same harshness down on his two sons, not allowing the possibility of a better future for his offspring.

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