Weekend Culture II: Fences at People's Light

The second cultural event of the weekend was August Wilson's play Fences at the People's Light & Theatre.  I've been to PLT performances before.  They are uniformly good.  This was the first time I'd seen one of Wilson's plays; I've been hearing about them for years.  The play is good.  The cast is terrific.  Michael Genet is the male lead.  He's appeared on Broadway and in film and television roles.  He's a fabulous actor.  One theme in the play is father / son tension. Genet's character is the husband and father of an African American family in the 1950's.  My favorite castmember, though, was Melanye Finister as Rose.  Maybe I just found her character more likable.

In the last scene, which takes place in 1965 a young Marine is wavering on whether he will re-enlist or not.  All I could think was that if he stayed in he was probably on the fast track for Viet Nam.

On the way to the theatre we saw a bad accident on the highway.  One of the cars was upside down and it looked like firefighters were using the jaws of life to get someone out of another vehicle.  Traffic was backed up quite a ways and must have been that way for some time.  People had gotten out of their cars and were talking to each other or sitting on top of their cars.  I looked for news reports about it but didn't see any.

During the play a woman in the audience fainted / passed out / had a seizure.  A theatre employee couldn't wake her but she was still breathing.  Emergency personnel came and took her out on a gurney.  I didn't see that in the news either.

All that aside, any performance at People's Light is going to be worth the money.  They have some interesting plays coming up this season.  Tickets would make a great holiday gift.