FENCES coming to Broadway

August Wilson's Fences, a play of great resonance (I blogged about it back on Sunday, May 10, 2009), is coming to Broadway on April 14th, starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis.

Playblog writes:

A Cover Story: Fences

March 28th, 2010
Denzel Washington stars in the first Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Fences, beginning April 14 at the Cort Theatre.

According to production notes, “As he faces off against the racial barrier at work and his own disappointments, Troy also grapples with his son, Cory, over the teenager’s hope for a football scholarship and with his wife, Rose, who confronts Troy over a child he has fathered with another woman.”

The production also features Viola Davis, Chris Chalk, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Russell Hornsby and Mykelti Williamson.

How exciting! 13 weeks only! I wonder if and when (how soon) student rush tickets will be offered. I hope I get to see this one.

P.S. This one is not a musical.

Anna in the Tropics

"I have another answer to your question. Alcohol is prohibited in this country because alcohol is like literature. Literature brings out the best and worst part of ourselves. If you're angry it brings out your anger. If you are sad, it brings out your sadness. And some of us are... Let's just say, not very happy."

"Yes, we deserve a little drink. We work hard enough. We deserve all that life offers us, and life is made of little moments. Little moments as small as violet petals. Little moments I could save in a jar and keep forever, like now talking to you."

"In his letter he was going to write everything he'd been meaning to tell her."

- Anna in the Tropics

Fences

a play by August Wilson
Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

some excerpts that resonated with me:

_______

Lyons, Troy's 34-year old musician son, asks to borrow $10 (again). Troy works as a garbage collector and chastises Lyons for not having a real job.

TROY: I told you I know some people down there. I can get you on the rubbish if you want to work. I told you that the last time you came by here asking me for something.
LYONS: Naw, Pop... thanks. That ain't for me. I don't wanna be carrying nobody's rubbish. I don't wanna be punching nobody's time clock.
TROY: What's the matter, you too good to carry people's rubbish? Where you think that ten dollars you talking about come from? I'm just supposed to haul people's rubbish and give my money to you cause you too lazy to work. You too lazy to work and wanna know why you ain't got what I got.
...
LYONS: You and me is two different people, Pop.

_____

Cory, Troy's second seventeen-year-old son, struggles against Troy to continue to play football and potentially get recruited for college while Troy, who loves baseball but was never able to play professionally before the Jackie Robinson era, insists that Cory quit football to continue working at the A&P.

CORY: How come you ain't never liked me?
...
TROY: Like you? I go out of here every morning... bust my butt... putting up with them crackers every day... cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw.
(Pause.)
It's my job. It's my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house... sleep you behind on my bedclothes... fill you belly up with my food... cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not 'cause I like you! Cause it's my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! Let's get this straight right here... before it go along any further... I ain't got to like you. Mr. Rand don't give me my money come payday cause he likes me. He give me cause he owe me. I done give you everything I had to give you. I gave you your life! Me and your mama worked that out between us. And liking your black ass wasn't part of the bargain. Don't you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you. You understand what I'm saying, boy?
CORY: Yessir.
TROY: Then get the hell out of my face, and get on down to that A&P.

____

Rose, Troy's second wife and mother of Cory, after overhearing the previous conversation:

ROSE: Times have changed from when you was young, Troy. People change. The world's changing around you and you can't even see it.
TROY: (Slow, methodical.) Woman... I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain't got no tears. I done spent them. We go upstairs in that room at night... and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning... find my lunch on the table. I go out. I make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday.
(Pause.)
That's all I got, Rose. That's all I got to give. I can't give nothing else.

____

Troy drunkenly confronts Cory for trying to walk around him on the steps of the porch without saying "Excuse me."

TROY: You just gonna walk over top of me?
CORY: I live here too!
TROY: (Advancing toward him.) You just gonna walk over top of me in my own house?
CORY: I ain't scared of you.
...
CORY: I ain't got to say excuse me to you. You don't count around here no more.
TROY: Oh, I see... I don't count around here no more. You ain't got to say excuse me to your daddy. All of a sudden you done got so grown that your daddy don't count around here no more... Around here in his own house and yard that he done paid for with the sweat of his brow. You done got so grown to where you gonna take over. You gonna take over my house. Is that right? ...

____

Seven years later, Cory returns on the date of Troy's funeral. He is a Corporal in the Marines.

ROSE: You just like him. You got him in you good.
CORY: Don't tell me that, Mama.
ROSE: You Troy Maxson all over again.
CORY: I don't want to be Troy Maxson. I want to be me.

___

Did Cory ever go to College?

A million little things, six degrees of separation

"A painting revolves slowly high over the stage..."

I just read "Six Degrees of Separation", a play by John Guare and it sounds like a fascinating play to cast. I really want to watch this live, I bet it would be very powerful. I kind of can't wait to hear why Professor Pease has to say about it. I love feeling really engaged in a class. I wish there were someone in my class I could talk to about this play... ironic because this is the biggest class I've ever been in... ahh the perils of a gut class.



It would be SO fun and cerebral to cast a play and direct it and be in it - a serious, profound play. Especially this play, and even more especially the role of Paul. According to Google Images, Will Smith was cast in a movie version as Paul. I don't see that as quite right. He has too much of a soft charm to him, his face is too open and young looking (even now), and the play so emphasizes the character's blackness and black background that I see him cast as a very dark black person.


Reminds me of:Obviously not this level of raw sex and muscularness, but I see Paul as a really beautiful creature with obvious good looks - not kindly good looks like young Will Smith.

Some other castings I found on Google Images:














Ugh this one looks all wrong. Paul, Ouisa, Flan - everything. Not right on any of them. And Ouisa would never wear a dress that made her breasts look like that. And Flan would never, never wear a tackly double-breasted jacked with ugly tie. How about another:

Also all wrong! Maybe I'm thinking of a modern iteration, but Paul would never wear that and Paul and Ouisa ar both too young looking and Ouisa's face is too round and lacks the sharpness of age.

Another:


This one looks a bit closer.... Paul wouldn't have facial hair or long hair like that though. He knows better, he's too careful to do that. And I imagine Flan to be a bit more powerful-looking. And Ouisa looks a bit too old.

Sigh. lol.

Also, another beautiful photo from the recent Gisele shoot... the limbs, the muscle tone, the effortlessness and naturalness of his holding her and her just nearly floating. Reminds me of Alvin Ailey dance company. A very dancer-like photo, I think.


________________________________________




haha and to follow up on F's recent post: I love onesies! Now I just need to get one. I feel like it's probably hard to find the right one. Also - high-waisted onesies: darling or dangerous? The one to the left may not be the BEST example, it looks rather awkward even on this pin-thin model


This item below is fucking adorable... but not really class-appropriate now, is it. Perhaps with a little denim jacket thrown over it?






And well, while we're at it - why not - look at a piece I just bought recently (in navy)! I can't wait for it to get hereeee

Eugene O'Neill, Master of Mirth

Excerpt from a WSJ review of a play - currently being staged on Broadway - that I read for my American Drama class this term.

by Terry Teachout

"Was Eugene O'Neill really a great playwright? Nobody was asking that question when he died in 1953, but nowadays his greatness tends to be asserted by critics rather than demonstrated by actors: O'Neill's work is no longer seen on Broadway with any regularity, and most of the plays that made him famous in the '20s are rarely done elsewhere. Robert Falls's revival of "Desire Under the Elms," O'Neill's 1924 tragedy about an aging farmer (Brian Dennehy) whose nubile young wife (Carla Gugino) lusts after her angry young stepson (Pablo Schreiber), marks the first time that this once-shocking, now-dated play has been performed on Broadway since 1952. I wish I could say it was worth the wait, but the play is silly and the staging comprehensively ludicrous, Ms. Gugino's steam-heated performance notwithstanding.

...

Ms. Gugino, a vibrant and compelling TV and film actress who has had the misfortune to appear in two bad plays in a row, "After the Fall" and "Suddenly Last Summer," is now three for three. Here as before, she manages to slice through the surrounding stupidity and give a performance that leaves no doubt of her exceptional gifts, but everything she does is wasted by Mr. Falls, who seems more interested in simulating sexual intercourse onstage than in making the best possible use of a major talent. Mr. Dennehy is solidly competent, Mr. Schreiber surprisingly dull. All three actors spend most of their time yelling."

Is that bad that it makes me want to see the play more?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124095688406165583.html#mod=article-outset-box

The Inheritors by Susan Glaspell

EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that ----! You can't change the way things are.
MADELINE (quietly): Why can't I?
EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are?
MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have something to say about America.
EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains.
MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a locked-up American than a free American.
EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much tenis played there. Jesus--what's Hindus?
MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? (Smiles.) You mightn't like his answer.

I just finished this play and it was so good. I'm in an American Drama class now and I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to read on a regular basis. I literally still feel guilty spending time reading though, even though it's for class. I'm kind of surprised at how good American drama is! I really, really like plays now. Hopefully I can watch one on Broadway or off-Broadway this summer.

-G