Fences

By Nathalie Temmen & Sirawat Kladrai

Adaptation:

To transform August Wilson’s play Fences into a more contemporary German context we decided to change the setting by altering part of German history. Instead of focusing on an African-American family in the 1950s our version of the play is about a Jewish family in the 21st century. The difference between our alternate reality and written history is that in our version World War II never took place.

These are the characters of our version:

Samuel Stern: A 53-year old office help, who has finally the chance of promotion to secretary. He used to be a professional football player but had to quit due to the rise of anti-Semitism in the 1970s. His father left the family when he was young and Samuel’s perception of fatherhood seems to be distorted. He has got a son called Aaron from a previous marriage and is now married to Rosa with whom he has another son.

Ivo Bono: Samuel’s and Rosa’s long term friend. After a rough night out drinking and fighting at a bar Ivo and Samuel first met in a drunk tank. Ivo shares Samuel’s passion for football and was one of the few who saw him play professionally. He admires Samuel but although he seems to be his role model, Ivo is concerned about the way Samuel treats his wife.

Rosa: Samuel’s several years younger wife. She is a very religious woman and an active member of the Jewish community. Rosa is very supportive of her son and even though she does not always agree with her husband she admires Samuel just as much as Ivo does.

Aaron: Samuel’s oldest son by previous marriage and a passionate musician.

Gabriel: Samuel’s brother. As a young man Gabriel had a terrible car accident which
damaged his brain. He received several thousand D-mark from his insurance and Samuel used this money to finance his house. Since the day of the accident Gabriel thinks he is the archangel Gabriel.

Levi: Samuel and Rosa’s son. He does not have a very healthy relationship to his father. Levi wants to become a professional Basketball player but his father refuses to support this and even forbids him to chase this dream.

Rahel: Samuel’s daughter from his affair with a woman called Martha.

Setting: The setting is the backyard of the Stern household, a small detached house located in a suburb of a big German city. The Sterns are the only Jewish family around and the poorly built terrace is the only part of the backyard that provides protection from their German neighbors.

Being frightened by the neighbor’s supposedly judging eyes the garden has not been taken care of in a while. A broken old wooden goal can be found further in the back. Underneath a big tree lies a tattered football.

The Play: It is the year 2003. After a financial bubble burst in 1974 society has finally recovered from the effects of the crisis. Since World War II never took place the mistrust towards Jews was a strong sentiment in the 20th century. Many started to blame minorities and the right wing was again on the rise. The descendants of Jewish immigrants never felt welcome here. They were sorted out at work, in schools and were forced to live with the alleged burden of being Jewish.

Almost thirty years later the situation has slightly changed. Jews are more integrated into German society but the old generation is still stuck in the struggle for acceptance.

To introduce the audience to the circumstances we decided to start the play with a monologue/song by Gabriel:

(The room darkens. The curtain is closed. A spotlight lights the centre of the stage. A
male singing voice is heard from a distance. Gabriel enters the stage continuing his
song. Images of war, marching Nazis and stills of concentration camps can be seen
each at a different location on the curtain.)

Gabriel (singing): ...Yes ma’am
Times a hard for them
Real hard
It could be worse, though
Imagine a world with a war of hate
Millions of them dying
Man, would I have been busy
Opening the gates to heaven for everyone
Luckily that’s not the case
Still, times are hard
Times are hard...

Analysis:

August Wilson’s play Fences is about an African-American family in the 1950s. We thought that Germans could not directly relate to this topic which is why we had to change a few things. We also thought that there is no such thing as the African- American conflict here in Germany and that the most similar problem of discrimination was the discrimination of Jews up to World War II.

The first thing we thought about was changing the place of the play. It is always difficult to understand what is going on in a nation when you are part of another one. So we decided to move the setting to Germany to make it more suitable for a German audience.

Also, we changed most of the names to underline their Jewish descent.

To convert the issue of racial burden we decided to create an alternative reality in which World War II never happened. In past times Jews had always been persecuted and discriminated against. World War II and its outcome led to global awareness and reflection on anti-Semitism. We thought about how a world without this reflection would look like and concluded that being a Jew in a society that grew up on treating minorities badly would lead to a situation very similar to Fences.

The time frame of the play is set in 2003 in a world that has recovered from a financial crisis in 1974 that had affected everyone equally bad. The setting of 2003 was chosen because we believed that it would offer the right amount of time to work with the plot of financial crisis and the play's theme of changing times. It was necessary to allow enough room for World War I recovery as well as the development of economical struggle and finally the subtle notion of times changing for the better, often overlooked by someone set in their ways. We introduced the plot element of financial crisis to simulate a situation which could lead to rise of racism and somewhat xenophobia. This combined with the general suspicion towards Jews creates a setting close to the mistreating of colored people in America. This is the time frame in which our main character Samuel plays soccer professionally until he is kicked off the team solely because he is of Jewish descent. This causes him grief and frustration, eventually turning into anger. It is then when he develops his skewed world view which he tries to project onto his son Levi. We felt that these changes to the original story were necessary to convey authenticity of the new setting.

Changing the practiced sports to soccer and basketball respectively was a decision to ensure proper immersion. We felt that baseball and American football made no sense in a German context.

We decided to start the play with Gabriel showing up on stage, singing a song to introduce the audience to the world we created. The reason we chose Gabriel to show the people the differences of our reality is because of his special character. Since he thinks he is the archangel Gabriel we thought we could transform him into a more “supernatural” character than he is in the original play. As a person with some kind of special powers we gave him the power to see what had been going on in an alternate universe - our real universe.

The adaption then mostly follows the same storyline as the original play. Some little notions like the localized changes and the different family background will sprout different dialogues and different actions without damaging the core idea and message the play is highlighting.