Performances Support ‘Fences’

In “Fences,” the new production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play at the Studio Theatre of the Long Beach Playhouse, actor Billy Mayo brings fire to his lead role as an embittered former baseball star.

Part of Wilson’s epic cycle of plays about the African American experience in each decade of this century, “Fences” opens in 1957, during the dawn of a civil rights movement that came too late to ensure Troy Maxson (Mayo) a spot in the major leagues.

The middle-aged hero knows that racism played a role in blocking his athletic career, yet he is tormented by far more than that injustice. Over time he allows his disappointment with life to overwhelm his relations with others, leading him to cheat on his long-suffering wife Rose (a gloriously tough Robyn Hastings) and brutalize his teen-age son Cory (Kyle Jones).

Director Bill DeLuca and cast can do little to fence in the windy and repetitive lapses in Wilson’s writing. Yet clear, honest performances propel the show at every turn.

Though too young for the part, Mayo brings off a delicate blend, simultaneously conveying Maxson’s raw fury and tragic vulnerability. This quicksilver man trades easy bonhomie with sidekick Bono (Wichita Troublefield), then fiercely intimidates his family just moments later.

Tragedy comes full circle for Maxson, whose problematic character finds fit expression in this handsome, frequently moving rendition. * “Fences,” Studio Theatre , Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sunday and Oct. 9, 2 p.m. Ends Oct. 15. $10. (310) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

‘Treasons’: Murder Mystery in London

The lower depths of 18th-Century London provide the setting for Jon Bastian’s “Petty Treasons,” at the Road Theatre Company in Van Nuys.

Based on a true story, Bastian’s ambitious though strangely uninvolving murder mystery concerns an abusive miser, his wife and her two lovers. When the miser’s head is found on the banks of the Thames, suspicion naturally centers on the menage a trois back at the dead man’s house.

Narrating the tale, after the passage of some 50 years, is Jack (Ken Sawyer), the hangman who disposed the case and remains haunted by its result.

As directed by Brad Hills, “Petty Treasons” convincingly depicts the historical period, at least in terms of costuming and Cockney dialects. Yet the text flounders between sordid whodunit and high-minded treatise on the morality of capital punishment.

* “Petty Treasons,” Road Theatre Company, 14141 Covello St. , No. 9D, Van Nuys. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 16. $12.50. (818) 785-6175. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.