Synopsis In the red corner: Leon Davidson - Black British champ or Uncle Tom? In the blue corner: Troy Augustus - American powerhouse or naïve cash cow? Two former friends step into the ring and face up to who they are. Sucker Punch looks back on what it was like to be young and Black in the 80s and asks if the right battles have been fought, let alone won. The Jerwood Theatre Downstairs will be reconfigured for this production. Age guidance 14+ Downstairs
Critics got a ringside seat at the Royal Court on Saturday (19 June) for the press performance of Roy Williams' Sucker Punch in the reconfigured Jerwood Theatre Downstairs. The play looks back on “what it was like to be young and black in the 1980s” through the prism of amateur boxing. In the red corner is Leon Davidson – black British champ or Uncle Tom? In the blue corner: Troy Augustus – American powerhouse or naïve cash cow?
It’s directed by Sacha Wares and stars young “actors-turned-boxers” Daniel Kaluuya and Anthony Welsh, who’ve been training under the tutelage of former British boxer and European champ Errol Christie.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) – “The Royal Court has been transformed into a boxing ring for Roy Williams’ new play, Sucker Punch … This amazing transformation by designer Miriam Buether comes at a price. The audience sections are alienated from each other … Williams aims lower than either of those writers, but he lands some telling blows about racism in the early 1980s, Mrs Thatcher (surprise, surprise) and a few jabs about the incipient riots in Brixton and Tottenham … It’s all good fun and should be a riot if it finds its right audience. I just wish Sacha Wares’ dynamic production – with exciting lighting by Peter Mumford and great boxing choreography by Leon Baugh – was as thoroughly audible as it is enjoyably authentic and spirited.”
Dominic Maxwell in The Times (four stars) – “Roy Williams’ new play is a punchy piece of work, both literally and figuratively … Figuratively, Williams is out to recapture a decade in which political correctness had yet to become the norm: where Nigel Lindsay’s Charlie could be a good bloke, yet demand that Daniel Kaluuya’s Leon, his main charge, stop seeing his daughter, Becky. Leon is a showman: jumping to James Brown and moonwalking around the ring. He gets hassle from white people for being black, from black people for being an Uncle Tom … As usual with Williams, the dialogue is crisp and bespoke: motives are mixed, nobody is a hero, nothing is just black and white. Lindsay is superb as Charlie, a mix of old-school decency, old-school prejudice and a blinkeredness that is all his own. Welsh is terrific as Troy, reinventing himself with scary conviction as a cool-talking American. And Kaluuya carries the show as Leon."
Michael Billington in the Guardian(four stars) – “Roy Williams, as we know from Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads, is adept at using sport as metaphor … Even if Troy's rise is implausibly rapid, Williams skilfully uses the ring to create a fable about race and money. He shows how Leon and Troy enjoy the illusion of autonomy but are ultimately at the mercy of promoters, for whom they are just meal tickets. Sacha Wares' thrilling staging makes the audience complicit in the process and is rich in telling detail: even the way Leon relies on Charlie to unravel his hand-wraps says everything about the boxer's state of dependence. Aided by superb performances from Daniel Kaluuya and Anthony Welsh as the two fighters and Nigel Lindsay as the racist Charlie, Williams' 90-minute play packs a knockout punch.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard(four stars) – “At the heart of Roy Williams’ bracing new play is a performance of piercing intensity by Daniel Kaluuya. As Leon, a young black boxer growing up in the Eighties, Kaluuya combines anger, eloquence, a pained worldliness and a strangely childlike capacity for fantasy … The subject matter is marrowy, and it’s satisfyingly developed in Sacha Wares’ involving, nicely paced staging. The key relationships are intelligently defined and suffused with pathos. There’s agile choreography by Leon Baugh, and Errol Christie’s contribution as the production’s boxing trainer is palpable … The performances are assured. Anthony Welsh’s Troy is a mixture of bluster, resentment and vulnerability … There are a few notes of implausibility, and the ending isn’t exactly heavyweight, but Williams articulates key aspects of the experience of black British youth in the Eighties in a way that feels fresh and authentic.”
Ian Shuttleworth in the Financial Times – “Wares' production is tight and agile. As Leon, the talented actor/ writer/musician Daniel Kaluuya is engaging; Nigel Harman is perfect casting as the ever-pressed Chas; and Trevor Laird has the right kind of appeal as Leon's defiantly feckless father. Roy Williams is an expert at writing about racism in sport: he has dealt with it among fans in his breakthrough play Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads and among football players in There's Only One Wayne Matthews! and Joe Guy … This is where my reservations lie: apart from the subject of boxing, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that Williams has done all this before, even the 1980s setting. Williams is smart and eloquent, and he has more to say than this."
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph(four stars) –“The main house at the Royal Court has been spectacularly transformed into a boxing club for this bruising new play by Roy Williams, for my money the undisputed heavyweight champion of black British dramatists … The fights themselves are thrilling. Even though no punches actually connect - the actors would surely be hospitalised if they did - the movement is so brilliantly choreographed that you still experience the visceral, guilty excitement that a good boxing match always generates … Director Sacha Wares builds up the tension in a gripping, interval-free, 90-minute production and Miriam Buether’s wonderfully authentic, venue-transforming design is a terrific coup … A big shout out, too, to choreographer Leon Baugh and boxing trainer Errol Christie, who have also played a part in making this hard-hitting drama such a theatrical knock-out.”
The Royal Court has been transformed into a boxing ring for Roy Williams’ new play, Sucker Punch. A new circle has been built to face to the old one, so we look down on the ring, and the punch bags, and the utilitarian chairs in the gym, where the old trainer Charlie (Nigel Lindsay) is putting the white welterweight hope (Jason Maza) through some punishing routines as we take our seats.
New corridors are plastered with cuttings of forgotten matches and champions. This amazing transformation by designer Miriam Buether comes at a price. The audience sections are alienated from each other. My recycled stalls leather seat was excruciatingly uncomfortable, jammed in at the end of a row. And the, in effect, awkward traverse staging and over-microphoned actors (why?) make a jumble of much of the text.
Most crucially, you miss almost all of the main man Leon’s terrific spotlight speeches about his early fights, full of detail and colour, in a sort of “big night” blare. Content is sacrificed to atmosphere, which is nonetheless terrific; especially in the climactic slow motion showdown between Leon (an absolutely brilliant, slyly athletic and skipping Daniel Kaluuya) and his best friend Troy (pin-sharp Anthony Welsh).
These boys are black, climbing out of the ghetto into the ring, rather like the heroes of two great American boxing plays, Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy and Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope. Williams aims lower than either of those writers, but he lands some telling blows about racism in the early 1980s, Mrs Thatcher (surprise, surprise) and a few jabs about the incipient riots in Brixton and Tottenham.
Mostly though, and very skilfully, Williams shuffles his six main characters to show how the lads graduate from cleaning toilets to fighting each other, playing around with the trainer’s daughter (sparkish Sarah Ridgeway), and dealing with parental expectation (Trevor Laird is a delight as Leon’s devious dad), while Charlie’s gym goes down the shoot and the big bucks beckon in the momentous, fur-coated shape of Gary Beadle’s American manager.
It’s all good fun and should be a riot if it finds its right audience. I just wish Sacha Wares’ dynamic production – with exciting lighting by Peter Mumford and great boxing choreography by Leon Baugh – was as thoroughly audible as it is enjoyably authentic and spirited.
If this ever comes around again I will advise all my friend with teenagers to see it. I was lucky enough to see this on its last day. My son was thrilled and humbled as he thought theatre was for posh people. Great acting from all concerned especially the two leads. We heard every word. - Sue
03 Aug 10
The Royal Court main house has been turned into a boxing club, complete with ring, which later becomes a boxing venue. Designer Miriam Buether is no stranger to such transformations (Relocated, My Child & Cock also here at the Royal Court) and this is just as impressive. It completely transports you to this (for me at least) alien world and in this case, back in time 20 ¨C 25 years. Roy Williams is just about the best playwright working in the UK today because he writes unpretentious plays which tell personal stories that illuminate and help us understand complex aspects of our society. This particular play shows us what it¡¯s like to grow up black in 80¡äs Britain through the story of two boys whose lives diverge and later re-connect. Setting it in Thatcher¡¯s Britain allows us to revisit a period of war (the Falklands), industrial strife and racism and wonder if anything has really changed. We¡¯re still fighting wars, we seem to be heading for a new period of strife and the spectre of racism has hardly gone away, just buried. It was a captivating 90 minutes sitting front row ringside with more testosterone in the room than all the other London theatres added together. Sacha Wares¡¯ staging, including amazingly real fight sequences, makes it all so totally believable that you wince at the racist comments and jump when a punch lands. There isn¡¯t a fault in the casting. Nigel Lindsay brings out all of the contradictions that inhabit trainer Charlie. Trevor Laird as Leon¡¯s dad and Gary Beadle as Troy¡¯s American give great cameos. Sarah Ridgeway really makes us feel for Becky, caught between her dad and Leon. Above all it¡¯s the three boxing boys ¨C Jason Maza, Anthony Welsh and Daniel Kaluuya ¨C who bring the play alive with extraordinary presence and energy; they are mesmerizing. Yet another triumph for Roy Williams and the Royal Court. - Gareth James
20 Jul 10
Yet again, Roy Williams and the Royal Court have pulled off a great coup. The play's strength lies in the sharpness of the characterisation and the setting not merely in a gym but in the ring itself. The transformation of the theatre into a boxing gym is remarkable. The performances are all excellent but Daniel Kaluuya is outstanding not least in the way that he subtly transforms himself through various stages from a schoolboy to a disillusioned boxer. Unlike your reviewer, I heard every word. - fred
The first theatre opened as The New Chelsea on 16 Apr 1870. Changed name to Belgravia. Re-opened as Royal Court 25 Jan 1871. Demolished in 1887. New theatre opened (current, slightly different site) 24 Sep 1888. Famous for supporting and commissioning new writing. Probably the first UK Theatre to regularly include their URL in advertising. Member of the Society of London Theatre. In 1996 the theatre closed for redevelopment, funded by the National Lottery. The refurbished theatre at Sloane Square re-opened in February 2000 including two theatres the 389 seat Jerwood Theatre Downstairs and the studio style Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.
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