Rec Room’s ‘The Royale’ is theater that packs a punch.|
BRANDON MORGAN STARS AS JAY JACKSON IN “THE ROYALE.”
What a powerful 75 minutes “The Royale” is.
Marco Ramirez’s play, staged in a sparse, electrifying production at the Rec Room through April 27, is on its surface a drama about the rise of America’s first black heavyweight boxing champion. But the play knows that a black boxer during the era of Jim Crow laws could never be seen as an athlete alone.
Images create mythologies. Mythologies give us a way to interpret the messiness of the world. And these interpretations, in turn, affect our everyday lives by sharpening, but also distorting, our sense of reality.
The way someone sees the world — informed by the emblems, symbols and mythic narratives that dominate their imagination — can mean the difference between life and death of a human being. Because that someone could be a cop conducting a traffic stop, a congressman voting over gun control, or a drunken man incited by the racially charged news of the day.
Based loosely on the life of Galveston-native Jack Johnson — the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion — “The Royale” is a series of quickfire, high-energy scenes between a boxer and his sparring partner, his coach, his promoter and others. The play switches between intense dialogue and balletic yet brutal boxing scenes.
Set designer Stefan Azizi transforms the cramped, narrow Rec Room space into a naturalistic showcase of light and shadow. In this space, director Brandon Weinbrenner (Alley Theatre’s “The Humans”) gives his actors permission to explode, then recede, when necessary.
Brandon Morgan is a physical powerhouse as boxer Jay Jackson (the name change relieves the play from a need to adhere to historical fact). He ducks and weaves, punching the air and reciting inner monologues with the rapid rhythm and poetic flair of a Dizzy Gillespie solo. Though Morgan showcases the charisma, grace and athletic intensity fit for a boxing champion, rare grimaces and fearful expressions leak out, hinting at a darker underside to the Jackson/Johnson story.
In the beginning of the play, Jackson has just defeated yet another opponent in the ring. He’s running out of worthy fighters within the African-American prizefighting circuit. He wishes to make the ultimate statement by fighting the defending world champion, a white boxer. The play centers around both Jackson’s efforts to fight with the white boxing champion and the obstacles his team faces as they attempt to make history.
Jackson is treated like any other pioneer — with excitement from his supporters and hostility from those who wish the world wouldn’t change. Death threats roll in. Lynchings occur shortly after his fights are aired. And even the press, not used to seeing a black man dominate the national boxing news, warp and distort the Jackson story to fit their own.
The play, after all, isn’t about a black man winning a boxing match. It’s about what that victory means for the rest of America. One narrative would be that it’s proof of the black man’s strength and heroism — a story of overcoming racism and prejudice and creating a better future. An alternative narrative, suggested by the racist media, would be that Jackson is a savage, an animal — something lower than a human.
These alternate stories exist to help show that “The Royale” isn’t the simple barrier-breaking story in which you root for Jackson to defeat his opponent. Ramirez didn’t want a story with such simple moral underpinnings.
Late in the play, an unexpected
visitor appears, warning Jackson of the consequences of defeating a white man. He’s asked to think of the riots, the lynchings and the death threats .
Because if Jackson were the winner, a calamity would befall the country: backlash and retaliation from an America not ready for the mythic power of a triumphant black man.
Such warping of the traditional underdog story is fitting for these times. Though written in 2015 and debuted in early 2016, “The Royale” seen in the year 2019 serves as a perfect analogy to the social battleground of our country today.
“The Royale” has a final confrontation between Jackson and an unlikely but fitting opponent. We see that Jackson doesn’t want to win a boxing match. He wants to become the symbol he believes the country needs, one that shows the humanity and beauty of black people.
But he has darkness in his eyes, as if he sees the looming spectre of a dark cloud. What he fears, you soon realize, isn’t loss or injury, but the blood spilled in the aftermath of change.