James Earl Jones introduced me to August Wilson by way of his play “Fences.” Our acquaintance was forged indirectly and vicariously, I should say, through my mother. In 1986, Mom was a season ticket holder with the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, where Jones starred in a pre-Broadway run of Wilson’s plan.
Mom attended a lot of Goodman productions, but Wilson’s play is the only one she couldn’t stop talking about for years, due to the writing and Jones’ anchoring presence. “Fences” was the playwright’s third production, and by the mid-‘80s, Jones was already a bonafide star, having completed his arc as Darth Vader in the first “Star Wars” trilogy and played Alex Haley in the groundbreaking miniseries “Roots” and “Roots: The Next Generation.”
