The expansion of that single image, and early writings on a bus ride, were followed by many drafts of the play.įrom the play's inception, and continuing through its development, Wilson pursued his goal to make Fences a more traditional play than those which he had previously written. That image of the man and baby is the center of Bearden’s collage, Continuities.

Of Wilson’s four influential 'B's,' – the Blues, Jorge Luis Borges, the Black Power Movement included – Bearden has had the most direct impact on Wilson's work. Wilson started writing Fences with the image of a man standing in his yard with a baby in his arms, an homage to the painter Romare Bearden. Wilson reacted to the criticism as a direct challenge and strove to write a play with a conventional narrative and one dominant central character. While his previous play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, achieved great critical and box office success, the play was criticized by conservative critics for its non-traditional structure and its bifurcated focus. Wilson's work on Fences was partially a response to commercial pressures. The more he struggles to stand upright, the more he stumbles. But the challenges of his racist world are driving him in conflicting directions. Now, in his middle years, Troy is fighting to uphold the lessons of responsibility he has learned and striving for balance with his family. He fought the pressures of the street but, nonetheless, landed in prison. He fought to use his talent for baseball to earn his living and was pushed back by the white establishment. Born in poverty in the South, Troy fought hard throughout his life. And so, on the bus heading home from the Conference, Wilson wrote the first scene of Fences.įences focuses on the family of Troy Maxson. But Wilson feared being a one-play playwright. Wilson's experience with Ma Rainey was very positive it was scheduled for production at the Yale Repertory Theatre and there was talk of Broadway. August Wilson began writing Fences in 1982, immediately following his work on the development of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference.

Fences book