Chris Eldon Lee reviews “Fences” – a Bath Theatre Royal production which is at Clwyd Theatr Cymru until Sat 6 April and Malvern the following week.
Lenny Henry’s acting ability is completely wasted on those Premier Inn ads.
Four decades into his career as a stand-up and TV comic, he’s now seemingly found absolute fulfilment as a proper, serious stage actor. His debut as a victimised Othello humbled many a critic, and his latest incarnation as an aggressive Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s “Fences” has had them searching Thesaurus for fresh superlatives. By the end of the evening at Clwyd Theatre Cymru a full house was straining at the leash to give him a standing ovation.
It was an accolade he pointedly shared with the entire cast, and rightly so. For whilst Henry is the star of the show, he determinedly declines to dominate – allowing an excellent and deeply experienced all-black company to flourish around him.
In any other theatrical event the headlines could easily go to Tanya Moodie who plays Troy’s wife Rose with poise, power, playfulness and, ultimately, pathos. Troy has loved her for 18 years – “she’s got hips as wide as the Mississippi”. But when temptation comes to call he’s counselled by his front porch drinking buddy Bono, played with hang dog sensitivity by Colin McFarlane, whose voice is so full of character he barely needs to act. The scene in which they discuss the ‘other woman’ is one of the most immaculate man-to-man moments of theatre I’ve ever witnessed.
And as for Henry himself, it’s an absolute delight to see a man who’s spent a whole career thirsting for new material gently coaxing every comic nuance out of a script that’s now 25 year old. He’s at his funniest just hanging out on the veranda with a Friday night bottle, passing comment on a garbage man’s lot and warming up his wife for later. For a while we’re allowed to enjoy Lenny’s cheeky grin. But when the time comes to put joking aside, he effortlessly changes tack to orchestrate his own domestic downfall; a performance steeped with pain, anger and humiliation as the bodies in his historical closet start to smell. Is the fence Rose insists he builds around his house designed to keep the family in, or the world out?
Wilson writes all this against the background of his own 1950s Pittsburgh suburb and the play is peppered with the first faltering steps towards some sort of racial equality …which still comes bitterly too late for Troy’s dreams of becoming a baseball star.
The Blacks are adept at handling hard times, use the N-word with alacrity and have nightmares about the Klu Klux Klan. Troy is smart enough to campaign for a better job (and gets it) but is too ambitious for his sons and can’t quite adapt to the demands of the next generation.
There’s scope for sentimentality in the script, but Henry very cleverly leaves us smiling with admiration at Troy’s ideals, whilst laying bare his dubious means of achieving them. It really is a wonderfully rich piece of casting.
The one weakness is the ending. Wilson’s seems to have thought of several, and has included them all. So we spectators had to wait a while before getting to our feet to gratefully applaud a hugely memorable night in the theatre.
Visit www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk for bookings & information about Clwyd Theatr Cymru.