Washington and Viola Davis reprise their roles from 2010’s solid Broadway revival as Troy and Rose, a mid-1950s couple living a version of the American Dream in a cozy middle-class home. Imagine Tennessee Williams punching up the dialogue of an earnest Arthur Miller father/son drama, and you get some idea of the embarrassment of riches here. It is both stunning to see and hear Wilson’s mid-century Pittsburgh realized on the big screen for the first time, and somewhat disconcerting to notice how much the intimacy and granularity of film forefronts the seams in Wilson’s writing: both his lyrical language and the reiterative bagginess of his dramaturgy. “Fences,” directed by and starring Denzel Washington, turns this great tragedy of thwarted manhood into a sumptuous, brooding prestige drama, with mostly salutary results.

Two new productions of his work-a film version of “Fences” and a Broadway production of “Jitney”-handily make the case for his continued vitality, even as they flag some signs for concern. But is he in danger of embodying that pantheon’s flip side: Great Writers No One Will Admit They Don’t Enjoy? In short, he has joined the required-reading list of Great Writers You’re Supposed to Love. He is now taught in schools and embraced as a kind of American Shakespeare, with all the good and bad that implies: honor and reverence, but also ubiquity and sanctity. Since he died in 2005, his stature has only increased, with his name regularly appearing on annual lists of the nation’s most-produced playwrights, and his astounding legacy-a 10-play cycle about African-American life in each decade of the 20th century-is justly cited as a kind of literary and theatrical monument. If his plays did begin to strain with significance by the end, it was less because the acclaim had gone to his head than because of more mundane creative kinks: repetition, fatigue, a few creative blind alleys. Unlike others who have batted in that league-Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Tony Kushner-Wilson managed to keep his eyes resolutely focused on the stage, producing one of the strongest streaks of any American artist in any form.

Most importantly, he did not let it stand in his way. Once August Wilson acquired the mantle of Great American Playwright, some time around the occasion of his 1987 Pulitzer and Tony awards for his drama “Fences,” he wore it proudly, occasionally self-consciously, but always with extraordinary grace. Greatness does an artist no favors, at least not in two areas that count the most: the quality of the work they do while they are alive and their connection to audiences after they are gone.

Fences 1987 full play