Phylicia Rashad directs August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton

Troy Maxson was a man before his time, but his legacy remains one of theaters most potent.

The middle-aged garbage man at the center of August Wilsons Fences, Maxons youth was defined by the baseball talent he showed as a star player in the Negro Leagues. But because he was born too early to play in the majors, he is determined to shield his son Cory from similar disappointment.

The play, which won Wilson a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987, chronicles in detail specific trials of African-American life in 1957 Pittsburgh.

But it resonates with timeless power as it delves into relationships that fray under long-simmering frustration a father and son divided by generational changes, a husband and wife whose everyday sacrifices whittle away at their happiness as well as loyalties and bonds that cannot be undone.

The play is so textured and layered with language, with thought, with feeling, with family, with hope, with dreams, with love, with disappointment, and, finally with forgiveness and self-acceptance, says Phylicia Rashad, who will direct the play at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton beginning Friday.

And history, lets not leave that out, she adds. There was so much to attract my attention and to earn my devotion.

Rashad helms the show immediately following a Long Wharf Theatre production in New Haven that received complimentary reviews.

The cast includes Esau Pritchett as Troy; Chris Myers as Cory; Portia as Troys wife, Rose; Phil McGlaston as the neighbor Bono; Jared McNeill as Troys older son, Lyons; and G. Alvarez Reid as Troys brother, Gabriel, who suffered a head injury in World War II.

Rashad rose to fame as Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show and has maintained a strong presence in the theater. In 2004, she became the first African-American woman to win a Tony Award for best actress in a play for A Raisin in the Sun, which she reprised on television in 2008.

Also in 2004, she appeared as Esther, a mystical figure believed to be 285 years old, in Wilsons Gem of the Ocean on Broadway.

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Phylicia Rashad directs August Wilson's 'Fences' at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton