A collaboration between MPC's Drama. Department and the African-American Theater Arts Troupe of U.C. Santa Cruz, "Fences," opened this past weekend on MPC's Main Stage. In its Lyrical cadences, its astringent honesty, its shared humanity and tough, healing humor, I found viewing it a deeply rewarding experience.

It has always taken us Americans, given our diverse ethnic roots as a nation, too long to understand and appreciate each other. And never more so than with African-Americans, saddled by a racism that imposed three centuries of slavery and yet another of pseudo-legalized ostracism before those underpinnings were knocked out from under it in the exciting, often unfairly castigated 1960s. That racism still exists most of us realizeÑjust as ugly, just as corrosive Ñ but now found mostly skulking in the dark unenlightened corners of far too many hearts.

Maxon, the play's protagonist, (as played by competent actor Aaron Woods) is a complex man: a humorous, exaggerating, mile-a-minute talker with his closest friend, Jim Bono (Allen Burnett); a loving tease with his tolerant wife, Rose (Nandi Ellis); a stingy penny-pincher to his older son, Lyons (Rameen Gasary); an understanding listener to his seriously disturbed brother, (Gabriel Jeree Brown, Jr.); and a demanding disciplinarian to young son Cory (Corey Saucier).

High-spirited banter carries most of the first of two acts along quickly and humorously. We learn much from Woods about Maxon's tough upbringing, his 15 years' imprisonment for a major crime, his care for wounded brother, Gabriel; his marriage to Rose; his short, late career as a ballplayer in the Negro leagues; his constant frustration with low pay and lack of advancement at work.

But towards the end of Act One, a confrontation with best friend Jim Bono involves painful revelations and creates severe tensions with everybody around Maxon for the rest of the play, all of it believable and painfully human. Ably directed by Don Williams, we see some Ellis' Rose reveals a remarkable toughness in the face of adversity. "I didn't leave enough space for me in our life together ' she ruefully tells TrOy. "You gotta grow into yourself," she admonishes her idealistic son, Cory, played with great sensitivity and charm by young Corey Saucier.