By Travis Johnson
For his third turn in the director’s chair (he helmed Antwone Fisher and The Great Debaters), Denzel Washington adapts the Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, Fences, by African-American playwright, August Wilson. Stepping back into the role he played in the show’s 2010 revival, Washington plays Troy, a former baseball player, now a garbageman trying to provide for his family in 1950s Pittsburgh. Viola Davis is his wife, Rose, with support coming from Mykelti Willamson, Jovan Adepo and Russell Hornsby.
Fences has been a long time coming – Wilson insisted on an African-American director, and also penned the screenplay, so this should prove to be an especially faithful adaptation. Fences hits Australian cinemas on January 26.
