OnStage: Following the arc of her character

Perhaps the most fraught scene in "Fences," extended through next Sunday at Penumbra Theatre, happens midway through the second act. Troy, the full-throated trash hauler and frustrated former baseball player, comes home with disruptive news. He has fathered a child by another woman, he tells his stunned wife, Rose. She fumes over the betrayal, speaking with her fists.

Then Troy tells Rose that the baby's mother has died, and asks her to rear the child. After some knotty deliberation, the whites of her eyes darting between anger and grace, Rose relents. "Right now this child has got a mother, but you a womanless man."

Performer Elayn J. Taylor invests the moment with heartbreak and a wounding understanding in her moving performance opposite powerhouse James A. Williams. Taylor, based in Los Angeles, said that the role is one of her favorites -- she has played it twice.

And she thinks playwright August Wilson had a deep understanding of Rose.

"She is a full and well-rounded character," said Taylor. "And there's an authenticity about her that [suggests] my mother and grandmother. She's the type of character who is quiet. She goes to church, which is her world, but she does everything she can to be the glue of the family."

There is a widely circulated charge that luminary playwright Wilson did not write strong female roles in his 10-play canon. It is true that many of the men in his dramas are generally strong figures, even without the tornadolike presence of Williams in this production. It is also true that Wilson's plays are populated mostly by men.

Women of the Wilson canon

But don't be fooled, said Taylor. To make such a claim, you have to ignore Aunt Ester, the mystical life force of "Gem of the Ocean," and Berniece, the sister in "The Piano Lesson," and even Martha, a smaller but pivotal role in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." Taylor has played all of them, including understudying Phylicia Rashad's Aunt Ester in "Gem" at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. (That West Coast production was directed by fellow "Fences" cast member Marion McClinton.)

"What can you say about Aunt Ester? She's a mother, grandmother, godlike figure, medicine woman and everything, rolled into one," said Taylor. "What I love about August Wilson is that these women have so much dimension, and they have arcs -- they grow."

Taylor said experience has given her insight into the women of the Wilson canon. She points to Berniece, the stubborn sister in "The Piano Lesson," who wants to keep her family's history preserved, even at the cost of remaining frozen. "Berniece has a tremendous transformation, a tremendous arc that goes from holding onto something to the point where she's ready to move into the future," she said.

Taylor also remembers Martha, the long-lost wife in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," a role she played in 1992.

"Martha sums up the play at the end," Taylor said. "She comes in to fulfill a dream, to give her husband, and us, closure."

But it is Rose that thrills her now. At the play's outset, she's quiet and matronly, but, by the end, she has come to a more vocal understanding of herself.

"I like to think of her as a rosebud, opening up through the play until she's in full bloom by the end," said Taylor. "She's a bouquet of changes -- we know her pain, her anger, but also her joy and grace."

The character is anchored in faith. "Borne out of the tragedy of their marriage, this child is given to her, and she becomes another place for her to find her love," she said.

"The way she defines herself is in her giving. A half-person can't give anything, can they?"

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390