Add a Sucker Punch to His Fight Card In ‘The Opponent,’ a Boxer and Trainer Square Off
Charles IsherwoodAugust 7, 2014: The next time I walk into a theater and am faced with a boxing ring, I may be tempted to flee. For some reason, pugilism has become the flavor of the moment at the theater. There is Rocky, of course, but also the Muhammad Ali bio-drama Fetch Clay, Make Man (which I’ve reviewed twice) & Tyson vs. Ali, an experimental play about those two famous champions. I’m beginning to feel a little punch-drunk. The next bout on the bill is The Opponent, a slender play by Brett Neveu, which opened Wednesday night at the 59E59 Theaters in a production that originated at the Chicago company A Red Orchid Theater. (The actor Michael Shannon is among the troupe’s founders.) In this two-hander — perhaps I should call it a four-fister — a young boxer, Donell Fuseles (Kamal Angelo Bolden), and a former fighter who runs a training gym, Tre Billiford (Guy Van Swearingen), hop into the ring together on the day of an important fight in Donell’s burgeoning career. As Donell practices his moves and Tre urges him on, they hash over the past and the future, both working up a good sweat as they bob and weave around the somewhat grimy ring of Joey Wade’s pungently detailed set, representing a down-at-the-heels establishment in Lafayette, La. Donell hasn’t been training at Tre’s place lately; the manager that Tre introduced him to a couple years back has moved him over to a higher-class gym. But Donell still feels a loyalty to Tre, and perhaps for sentimental reasons has decided to stop by and work out on the morning before his most important professional fight. Mr. Neveu, a well-regarded Chicago playwright, captures the friendly but occasionally testy give and take between the up-and-comer and his former mentor as they suss out Donell’s approach to his fight. And yet much of the dialogue — when it can be heard among the sounds of leather hitting leather — seems to do little more than establish Mr. Neveu’s admirable grasp of this testosterone-drenched milieu. The script keeps circling without really landing any notable hits.
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