BWW Review: Boxing and Elegant Moves Join Forces in MKE Rep's Powerful THE ROYALE
Two men enclosed in a boxing ring--one black and one white-vie for the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship and a transformative match that might knock out race relations for decades to come. Milwaukee Repertory Theaer imports Marco Ramiriez's The Royale to the Stiemke Studio in sophisticated style starring David St. Louis playing the African American boxing champion Jay 'the Sport' Jackson. Jay Jackson represents the actual heavyweight champion Jack Johnson who defeated the previous World Heavyweight champion, Jim Jeffries, a white man, on July 4, 2010 to win freedom for the black boxer. In the stunning Rep production, Ramirez's script loosely retells the story that changed the course of boxing history where Jackson became the first African American Heavyweight Champion in an era when the Klu Klux Klan lynched black men for merely the color of their skin.