Review: Marco Ramirez's Inventively-Crafted Boxing Drama THE ROYALE Spars With Racism

Any playwright who attempts a fictionalized biography of Jack Johnson, the trailblazing and outspoken boxer who outraged as many as he thrilled by becoming, in 1908, the first African-American World's Heavyweight Boxing Champion, has a formidable opponent to contend with.

Playwright Howard Sackler's THE GREAT WHITE HOPE, named for the succession of white boxers promoters threw in front of Johnson in a desperate attempt to gain the title back for their race, won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize For Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play and its stars, James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, repeated their Tony-winning performances in a successful film adaptation.

But Marco Ramirez's inventively-crafted The Royale, given a tense, rhythmic and evocative mounting by Rachel Chavkin, merits high scores of its own. The playwright names Geoffrey C. Ward's "Unforgivable Blackness" and Joyce Carol Oates' "On Boxing" as inspirations.

The Johnson stand-in this time is named Jay Jackson and, as played by the excellent Khris Davis, he possesses all the cocky showmanship and breathtaking skill and power that the original was known for.

Unlike Sackler, Ramirez presents his protagonist at the cusp of fame. The audience enters the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, a perfect venue for the play, given its semi-circular arena seating, to see the designer Nick Vaughan's makeshift wooden boxing ring where Negro Heavyweight Champion Jackson defends his crown.

Jackson's promoter, Max (John Lavelle), introduces the evening's combatants with the customary verve. His opponent tonight is a Navy boxer named Fish (McKinley Belcher III), a nervous young man who was promised two week's pay if he goes the distance. Jackson entertains the crowd by grandly asking his chump of the night which round he wants to be knocked out in. The taunts and humiliations not only increase ticket sales but are calculated to get into his opponent's head.

Instead of traditional fight choreography, their contest is depicted abstractly with hand claps, pounding feat on the floor, leaps, reactions and the maneuvering of a set piece representing one roped side of the ring. This very effective move makes the dialogue, both spoken and internal, the focus of the match.

While Fish never stands a chance, he puts up a better fight than any of Jackson's dozens of other opponents, so he's offered a job as sparring partner. Max, the only white person in Jay's entourage, has been doing his best to get undefeated white champ James J. Jeffries out of retirement to box his man, but the custom of the day is to never give a black man a shot at the crown.

When Jeffries agrees to fight Jackson if he'll accept a demeaning condition, the Negro Champ accepts.

A terrifically staged and written scene has Lavelle playing numerous reporters at a press conference. Davis' attention moves seamlessly as his character goes back and forth from sparring with Fish to sparring with the press, all the while his crusty trainer, Wynton (Clarke Peters), calls out instructions that apply to handling both opponents.

Though Max and Wynton have been protecting Jay from the knowledge of attempts on his life, his serious-minded sister Nina (Montego Glover) arrives to remind him that other African-Americans won't have the same kind of protection from angry whites if he wins.

The championship match is represented with unexpected dramatics, as Jay must eventually learn the price of his victories, and of the victories of his people.

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