Heavyweight writer delivers knockout
The Royale
★★★1/2 (out of 4) By Marco Ramirez. Directed by Guillermo Verdecchia. Until Nov. 1 at the Young Centre for the Arts, 50 Tank House Lane. Soulpepper.ca or 416-866-8666.
In Toronto’s jam-packed theatrical October, a mini-theme has emerged: sports plays. á Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves is about a high school girls’ soccer team; á Anosh Irani’s The Men in White is about amateur cricketers;
á and Cuban-American playwright Marco Ramirez’s The
Royale fictionalizes a world-famous interracial boxing match.
All three playwrights face the same challenge: how to stage the sport itself? DeLappe and Irani keep the playing offstage, but Ramirez steps into the ring. Which isn’t to say that the boxing is realistic. Rather, the performers simulate physical sparring while never touching or often even facing each other. It’s the words and rhythms the fiveactor company make, through verbal noises, clapping and rapping on objects, that land the blows.
All this is articulated very precisely in Ramirez’s script, which director Guillermo Verdecchia honours in his dazzlingly honed Soulpepper production, adding a complementary layer of high theatrics through superbly designed lighting (Michelle Ramsay) and sound (Thomas Ryder Payne). The actors sit, always visible, behind the back ropes of Ken MacKenzie’s boxing-ring set, while the other three sides are left open. Two rows of audience members sit beside the ring (for a $25 ticket price) and
while they miss the full effect of Ramsay’s spectacular back wall of incandescent scoop lighting, I’d have liked to have been that close, just to appreciate the detail, intensity and synchronization of the actors’ performances.
The basis of the play is the true story of African-American boxer Jack Johnson, who became heavyweight champion of the world in 1910, sparking race riots across the U.S. Ramirez compresses and tweaks some of the history in creating his cen-
tral character Jay Jackson (Dion Johnstone), who is fixated on the championship but forced to consider the damage that winning it could wreak.
Initially, the play seems like a classic underdog sports story: here’s Jay, his cranky older trainer Wynton (Alexander Thomas), his fast-talking white promoter Max (Diego Matamoros) and the ambitious young competition (Christef Desir) who might also become an ally. See Jay defy expectations, apply killer charm and
draw the team along with him as he gets ever closer to the prize. Yes, this is how it goes, but from the beginning, the punctuation of the dialogue with claps and the odd “Ha,” and the quick cuts between characters signalled by lighting and sound cues, draws the audience in, making the experience feel like a revival meeting or rally.
When the play’s only female character, Nina (Sabryn Rock), comes in about halfway through, things get really real. Jay is startled out of his singular
focus to realize that this Davidand-Goliath crusade is making some white people very angry, and putting those closest to him at risk. The lines between winning and losing blur; the place of individuals within systems of power, privilege and history comes into relief. While drawing everything back to a specific memory rings sentimental, the way in which Ramirez centres these personal questions in the big final showdown is a breathtaking coup de theatre.
Johnstone is a powerhouse as Jay: a commanding physical presence whether in MacKenzie’s knit boxing shorts or smart suits (Jack Johnson’s famous taste for fancy clothes and white women is mentioned in the play, but not dwelled on), offering a convincing mix of charisma, vision and emergent self-doubt. Desir and Matamoros are very well cast and create compelling relationships with Johnstone; Matamoros works the crowd beautifully in a press conference scene. Rock is stunning as Nina, navigating conflicting, strong emotions as she faces Jay down. It is occasionally a problem understanding Thomas’s diction (and placing him upstage for a crucial monologue doesn’t help), but he is a solid presence offering craggy wisdom (and the occasional well-timed laugh line).
Ramirez is a successful writer for screen ( Orange is the New Black, Sons of Anarchy, Daredevil) but this, his much-produced first play, reveals a deep understanding of how to compel audiences onstage. This Soulpepper production does it proud.
Karen Fricker is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @KarenFricker2