Fishburne and Bassett redux

Sometimes you just need to put something out there into the cosmos to get the answer you're looking for. Sometimes it's the right answer.

Caught and reviewed the Odyssey Theatre's production of August WIlson's "Fences" a week ago which left me wondering what the more resourced Pasadena Playhouse would do re: casting Wilson's "Death of a Salesman" like tale of a Negro League slugger turned garbage collector and his family when the Playhouse mounted the same play in September.

The day before my review appeared, I got my answer. Laurence Fishburne, finishing up a run of the dopey Alfred Uhry play "Without Walls" at the Mark Taper Forum, would play Troy opposite Angela Bassett as Troy's wife Rose.

Yeah, I'll see that production.

Fishburne's a pro who smoulders convincingly both on screen ("The Matrix", "School Daze" etc.) and on stage. He and Bassett each got Oscar nods for playing Ike and Tina Turner in "What's Love Got to do With It." The two actors recently reunited on screen for "Akeelah and the Bee."

They've both played Wilson before: Bassett in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," and Fishburne in "Two Trains Running." Bassett shouldn't have any difficulty finding someone to run lines with. Her husband, Courtney B. Vance, played the Maxon's youngest son Cory in "Fences" on Broadway back in 1987 opposite James Earl Jones.

As of this writing, there is no theatrical event I anticipate with greater eagerness.