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Whenever I think of Troy, I think of James Earl Jones, the man who created the part. Sure, I saw Denzel Washington in the movie, and Denzel is pretty good in it too, but Troy should be played by a man tall enough and broad enough for tragedy: a massive man, with a massive voice, like ol� Daddy Darth Vader his own self.

August Wilson’s Fences--the greatest play written by an African-American and one of the finest plays written by anybody anywhere—is the story of middle-aged Troy Maxson, once a legendary hitter of the Negro League but now a trash collector in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is an admirable man, in his own way, dedicated to fulfilling his responsibilities as a breadwinner to his wife and their son. But a life of economic and emotional impoverishment—first as the son of a vicious sharecropper, later as prisoner, and then as a black ball player with no opportunity to compete in the major leagues—has left him bitter, shriveled up inside, unavailable to the people who love him.

As we watch this damaged man make choices, most of which prove to be wrong, we feel both pity and terror for him, at his growing fear of death, at the great waste that has become his life. Yet we never quite feel we are witnessing a tragedy, for Troy, magnificent as he is, as noble as destiny has formed him, has been fenced in by poverty and racism so thoroughly that even a small tragedy—like Willy Loman’s, for example—will be forever denied him.

A tragic hero deprived of tragedy: that is Troy Maxson’s fate. Yet the play nevertheless ends with something like an apotheosis: in his wife’s Rose summing up (“I don’t know if he was right or wrong � but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm�); in his two children who sing again an old song Troy once sang; and in his brain-damaged brother Gabriel, who raises a trumpet to his lips to blow his brother past St. Peter's Gate, right into his fenced-in heavenly home.

I’ll conclude with Troy’s last soliloquy, spoken to Death after Death has come for the mother of his newborn daughter:

Alright...Mr. Death. See now...I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take and build me a fence around this yard. See? I’m gonna build me a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. See? You stay over there until you’re ready for me. Then you come on. Bring your army. Bring your sickle. Bring your wrestling clothes. I ain’t gonna fall down on my vigilance this time. You ain’t gonna sneak up on me no more. When you ready for me...when the top of your list say Troy Maxson...that’s when you come around here. You come up and knock on the front door. Ain’t nobody else got nothing to do with this. This is between you and me. Man to man. You stay on the other side of that fence until you ready for me. Then you come up and knock on the front door. Anytime you want. I’ll be ready for you.