Fences

Denzel Washington does a magnificent slow burn as garbageman Troy Maxson, the bitter ex-ballplayer in August Wilson’s Fences. This mythmaking, big-talking patriarch steps up to the plate for another inning in Kenny Leon’s warm, fine-textured and deeply engrossing revival. Blazing hot while Washington stays cold, Viola Davis is equally powerful as Rose, Troy's soon-to-be-wronged wife. Wilson's 1987 drama, set in 1957, eulogizes a black man born too late for integration, caught between past and future as Death looms in the shadows.—David Cote