By Victoria Mejicanos
AFRO Staff Writer
vmejicanos@afro.com
(Courtesy Photo)
Chesapeake Shakespeare Company will produce August Wilson’s “Fences” as part of the citywide Baltimore August Wilson Celebration. The production is the sixth of 10 plays in Wilson’s American Century Cycle, being staged as part of the celebration, and will run Feb. 6–March 1.
Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, “Fences” centers on Troy Maxson, a former Negro Leagues baseball player whose dreams and talents could not fully be realized due to segregation, casting shadows on his life as a husband, father, and working man. Now a sanitation worker, Troy is forced to wrestle with a world that denied him opportunity while demanding his constant labor.
DeJeanette Horne, who plays Troy Maxson, spoke with the AFRO about his deep appreciation for August Wilson and the complexities of the character of Troy.
“Troy Maxson is a wonderful challenge to try and bring to life on stage,” said Horne. He’s such a complex male figure. He’s got so many facets to him. There’s good, there’s bad and there’s ugly, and my hope is to be able to bring that to life and allow people to see all of those facets of Troy.”
Horne said he hopes audiences connect with Troy’s character.
“We’re all complex,” said Horne.“We all have different facets, and I want to honor that. I’m really excited about the opportunity to do that.”
Alongside him is Horne’s real-life wife, Lolita Marie, playing Rose Maxson. She shared that being in an August Wilson production is a point of pride for her, especially as a woman. Wilson’s plays are from a male perspective, which means there are slightly fewer roles for women, but the roles are critical, even if there are few.
Marie spoke about what Rose represents in the play.
“I think her role in this piece is very much the rock— the glue—that holds the family together. My hope is that what [the audience] sees resonates with them, and that it resonates as being real.”
Both Marie and Horne called helping preserve August Wilson’s legacy through this production an “awesome responsibility.”
The director of the production, Reginald Douglas, says that he hopes the family at the center of the play inspires audiences.
“I hope audiences are remembering the love and the joy of this family and hold on to that as they go back into this sort of really trying world right now,” said Douglas. “I hope audiences are thinking about where we’ve been as a country, the history that has so often thwarted the dream of Black men in particular, and hopefully, they have a deeper appreciation for the resilience and strength of our ancestors to push through the hurdles of our past, and hopefully that inspires them to stay strong and resilient as we navigate this world today.”
Douglas also reflected on the legacy of Wilson today, calling him “one of America’s Shakespeares.”
“Wilson is one of the greats, and to have him on stage at CSC, especially, I think lifts up his rightful place in our zeitgeist,” said Douglas. “It’s an honor to be bringing his work to life again and to keep his work alive. What he beautifully does in his plays is tell the history of America through people and through these human stories of resilience, of strength, of overcoming. He writes into the history books many of the dreams that get forgotten over time.”
To purchase tickets, visit ChesapeakeShakespeare.com, or contact the box office directly by calling 410-244-8570. Adult tickets start at $59, and tickets for youth 25 and under start at $31.