Powerful ‘Fences’ opens at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton directed by Phylicia Rashad

Theres a steely gleam in Esau Pritchetts eyes as he tells harrowing childhood stories. He keeps his cool, but theres a chilling sense of torture as his voice rises and tenses but never reaches a full outcry.

As Troy Maxson in Fences at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, Pritchett simmers, stretching to endure, until he has lost all he has cared about and only then do we see the full extent of his rage and his pain.

As the nucleus of director Phylicia Rashads perceptive production of August Wilsons Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning classic, Pritchett is emblematic of the powerful characters portrayed in finely calibrated performances by the full cast.

Set in Pittsburghs Hill District in 1957, the action takes place largely on the Maxsons porch, where Wilson probes family ties, economic hardship and racism endured to different degrees by different generations in a time of social change. Set design by John Iacovelli and costumes ESOSA vibrantly evoke the period.

The title refers most explicitly to a fence Troy and Cory have promised to build for Rose. As their friend Bono (a dynamic Phil McGlaston) says, some people build fences to keep people out and others, to keep people in. Rose wants to hold her family tightly close, Troy to keep out the threat of an enemy, in his mind, death.

Rose (played by the single-named actress Portia) has reason for concern. Troy wants his son Cory (Chris Myers) to be as different from him as possible with the exception of a having a loving wife and his approach to parenting can be brutal.

Once a Negro League baseball star born too early for the majors Troy is now a garbage collector. As played by Pritchett, he still has his old charm and bravado, which peek out from beneath a hardened, weary exterior.

Sharing his fathers athleticism, Cory has attracted the attention of a recruiter who has offered him a football scholarship which Troy refuses to let him accept, thinking he will be similarly shut out from professional opportunities.

Throughout the play, both swat at a makeshift baseball substitute hung from a tree they can swing for the fences, so to speak, with flawless aim, but their efforts go nowhere.

Myers physically embodies Corys early tentativeness, his shoulders slumping, intimidated at the sight of his father. In one of the most memorable scenes, he asks Troy, How come you aint never liked me?, a question met with what seems like cold puzzlement. Later, we see that the response comes from Troys desire to help his son to develop calluses, like his own, against harsh realities.

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Powerful 'Fences' opens at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton directed by Phylicia Rashad