'Fences' Playwright August Wilson Once Called St. Paul Home
ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- The movie Fences is packing theaters nationwide. Many Minnesotans may be familiar with the storyline because they've seen the play performed at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul.
The movie is a film adaptation of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. It stars Denzel Washington and Viola Davis.
Wilson lived in St. Paul for more than a decade. It was during that time he wrote "Fences" and became close friends with Penumbra Theatre's founder Lou Bellamy.
"Fences" is full of scenes that are full of emotion. It explores the life of a sanitation worker and the tension within his family.
"You recognize everything about it. You recognize the 50s, you recognize the cars, but all of a sudden the stories have this African-American cultural bend, and you say I recognize that, but it's different," Bellamy said.
Penumbra Theatre's Lou Bellamy has directed the play Fences dozens of times, nationwide. He's even played the lead role. Back in the 1970s, he and August Wilson formed a friendship.
"He'd never seen a black theater with assigned seating and production value like we have. It just blew him away and so he ended up moving here," Bellamy said.
August Wilson lived in St. Paul's Selby-Dale neighborhood from 1978 to 1990.
"When I came to St. Paul, I was not a playwright. I had written a couple of plays but did not consider myself a playwright," Wilson said when WCCO talked with him about Fences in 1997.
He described "Troy," who's the main character.
"In an effort to protect his son whom he loved, from the cruelties of the world, he ends up doing him a harm when he's trying to do him a good," Wilson said.
Bellamy told us he thinks August Wilson would be very pleased with the movie. Wilson died in 2005.
"He gave us a wonderful gift that will go on for a long, long time," Bellamy said.
Critics are saying the movie is expected to earn a handful of Oscar nominations later this month.
