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Underdogs

By Marco Ramirez

All storytellers like their underdogs. From Oliver Twist to Luke Skywalker, our myths are filled to the brim with characters up against insurmountable odds. And understandably so, because these stories work well in literature and film, but when it comes to the stage, stories about underdogs overcoming obstacles can’t help but feel thin. Corny. Simple.

In the theatre, we like our underdogs scorned. From Richard III to Salieri, we go to the theatre to root for victims of injustice, for those whose ambitions have been squashed by circumstances way beyond their control.

It’s gratifying to watch wrongs get righted, and I think the theatre is the ideal place for it, because only there can a character address us directly – in the flesh – and say – “Come with me on a journey. I’m taking this fucker down, and this is how I’m going to do it.” When I sat down to write a play about boxing, I wasn’t sure which kind of story I wanted to tell, but I did know that I wanted somehow to put all of us in the boxer’s head, so that when he said “Here comes the knock-out,” the entire audience felt like they were swinging with him.

In order to earn that – to get us all behind that punch – I needed a boxer who was the victim of some kind of injustice, something beyond that boxer’s control, and few athletes in history have suffered more injustice than the man who inspired The Royale. The Galveston Giant himself. Jack Johnson.

I took so many liberties with this piece that I renamed him, because this is in no way Jack Johnson’s actual story. The Royale’s Jay Jackson is a black boxer in America during the Jim Crow Era, and he’s also trying to get the white heavyweight into a ring – but the similarities end there – because The Royale isn’t just about Jack.

It’s Muhammad Ali, whose legacy is as much about braggadocio as it is about pugilistic skill. It’s about Miles Davis, who in the midst of the African American Civil Rights Movement, insisted on zooming down New York City streets in his Ferrari. It’s about Jay-Z, a self-made entrepreneur who realized early on that the only way to get a seat at the table of high society was to take it.

The Royale’s Jay Jackson wants be remembered, whether the establishment allows it or not. Like those scorned heroes out of theatre history, he will take what is rightfully his, and I hope you feel your fingers curl into a fist when he turns and asks that you come along with him – because he’s gonna knock this fucker out.