Fences

Troy Maxson is a hard man who has had to be one to survive. He has lived his whole life in an America where being proud and black brings pressures that can crush a person, body and soul.

The play is set as the 1950s give way to the 1960s. A new spirit of liberation is changing the world Troy has learned to deal with in the only way he knows. As it spreads, Troy grows angry and afraid, a stranger in a world he never knew. He also understands his wife and his son less and less.

Fences is a stage drama, a modern classic that takes on race in America during the years of the Civil Rights Movement. The questions it raises are difficult ones, and it treats them seriously rather than lightly. Expect a serious, character-driven work built around one man and his household.

The play won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize. It has also been adapted as a film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, with Viola Davis in the cast.