Guest Blog: Playwright Kemp Powers On ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI...

How does one put words into the mouths of titans?

It was something I struggled with mightily as I was writing One Night in Miami... At times, I regretted even taking on the challenge of trying to speak in the voices of Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, Malcolm X and Jim Brown. But the importance of the special friendship between those men left me with a feeling of obligation to see my attempt through to fruition.

That those four equally dynamic but also disparate personalities called one another friends during the 1960s is easy to take for granted today, when celebrity "squads" are just another ubiquitous component of the personal branding that is a prerequisite of modern fame.

But to be famous, American and consciously black at a time when segregation was still the law of the land was nothing short of unprecedented. To plan something as mundane as a road trip, many black Americans had to utilize the popular Green Book, a guide to lodgings, restaurants and gas stations that would service Negroes, in order to avoid open hostility (or worse) when venturing outside their communities. To the globetrotting black celebrity, the stifling realities of American life could prove soul-crushing. To the nationalistic black celebrity, it could be downright life-threatening.

One could argue that in 1964, there were no four men in America who were more famous and unapologetically black than the quartet of Clay, Cooke, Brown and X. Malcolm X was a fiery Nation of Islam minister and controversial Civil Rights figure. Sam Cooke was a chart-topping singer who was simultaneously blazing trails in the world of music licensing, publishing and production. Jim Brown was the most dominant player the young NFL had ever seen, as well as an entrepreneur and investor. And then there was Cassius Clay, a brash, outspoken Olympic champion who would within the year come to be known as Muhammad Ali, but was at the time more commonly referred to simply as "the Louisville Lip".

All four shared very nationalistic ideas about blackness that, in hindsight, made their friendship seem inevitable. Though some of them were more public about their feelings than others. But the subtle hints were always visible to the discerning eye. Take a look at look at old photos of Jim Brown arriving at football practice wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase; a defiant, unspoken reminder to everyone watching that he wasn't caught up in the blind idealism that defined professional sports, and instead viewed it simply as a job.

Or look at Sam Cooke's hair in photos from the late Fifties and early Sixties. His close-cropped afro would not be an uncommon sight a decade later, but consider how much his natural hair stood out when compared to the straightened-hair look of contemporaries like Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Little Richard and the roster of Motown artists who followed him years later. Something as simple as having a natural haircut was nothing short of a bold statement of black consciousness.

On February 25, 1964, when the 22-year-old Clay went up against fearsome heavyweight Sonny Liston in Miami, Florida, few thought the upstart had even a remote chance of beating the champion. That's why when Clay defeated Liston, no party had been planned. No one actually thought the loudmouthed kid could win. No one, it seems, except those friends who knew him best. His "big brother" figures, Malcolm, Sam and Jim.

Which was why the four retreated after the fight to Malcolm's tiny room at the Hampton House Motel in Miami's Overtown section, for a private night of celebration and reflection over scoops of vanilla ice cream. None of them knew the FBI had outfitted Malcolm's room with listening devices, not that it would have mattered if they did. The next morning, Clay, the young fighter who "shook up the world", dropped another bomb, confirming that he was in fact now a member of the controversial Nation of Islam, just like Malcolm X.

That special night provided just the structural blueprint I needed. I wanted to write a play that represented the immediacy of that tumultuous moment in time, and rather than attempt to encompass all that these four icons had been in their lives up to that point, I could instead try to capture a living snapshot of that one, pivotal moment.

So I set my play not in the ring, during what is now acknowledged as one of the fights of the century, or at the Miami clubs where the sounds of soul music had audiences swaying in ecstasy, but right there in that tiny hotel room. A real-time slice of life of four young friends who had no idea what the impact of the decisions made in that room would have on generations to come.

One Night in Miami... is at the Donmar Warehouse 6 October-3 December

Photo credit: Johan Persson

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