Fences, Duchess Theatre – theatre review

He plays Troy Maxson, perhaps the most towering of all Wilsons creations. Troy was once a promising baseball player whose prospects were hampered by his colour. Now he is a garbage collector, apparently anchored by bullish pride and his marriage to the gracious and sometimes fierce Rose (Tanya Moodie, excellent).

Henry finds richness and depth in the role: at first Troy looks like a jovial boozehound, but we gradually see his complexity. He is a flawed and wounded character, capable of plundering his brothers post-war disability allowance. Even his efforts to construct a fence around his Pittsburgh home are double-edged: he wants to confine his family and also keep the rest of the world at bay.

Troy is prone to conflict, above all with his sons. Cory (Ashley Zhangazha) has a talent for American football, which may hold the key to his getting a better education than Troy ever had. Lyons (Peter Bankol) is a gifted musician. Troy takes no interest in Lyonss music and dismisses him as a scrounger, but reserves truly humiliating treatment for the younger and more vulnerable Cory.

Director Paulette Randall locates the plays emotional core. The relationships are all convincingly presented, and theres exuberant work from Colin McFarlane as Troys drinking buddy Jim Bono and Ako Mitchell as his mentally disturbed brother, Gabriel. Crucially, too, the restrictions of Troys world are well defined. Yet Wilsons writing is verbose, laden with a symbolism that is rather too obvious. His epic ambition and the universality of his themes dont quite make up for the clunky exposition and overstretched metaphors especially about baseball.

Running two and three-quarter hours, Fences is dense and unsettling. Its brave to programme such a meaty, daunting piece during the summer months. But it is worth seeing for Henrys immense performance, which switches compellingly from humour to fury and from hopefulness to piercing disillusionment.

Until September 14 (0844 482 9672, duchesstheatre.co.uk)

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Fences, Duchess Theatre - theatre review