Response 2

Free Viewing of The Royale

When I looked through the syllabus and saw that we were going to have free student tickets to go to the Merrimack Repertory Theater to see a play, I thought it would be interesting to say the least. It had been years since I had seen a play actually performed professionally at a theater, not just for school. I had no idea what The Royale, written by Marco Ramirez, was about, until my roommate John summarized it quickly as "a play about boxing". Obviously, there's more to it than that, I thought to myself, but the boxing alone intrigued me about it. So for class the next day, instead of heading to the O'Leary Library where our class normally is, we went to the Cotton Museum & the Mill Girls exhibit, then we went to the Theater later that night.

It was around 7:15 when I got to the theater. On the way there, I initially thought that we would actually meet in front of the theater or actually in the theater as a group. When I actually got there, I was the only person in the lobby, so I thought to myself "Am I late, even though the email Professor Conway sent definitely said 7:15 pm?". I walked over to the ticket booth and the guy attending the booth asked 'Name?". I got caught off guard for a second because I was going to tell him I'm here with the FYSH class that got free tickets. Then I see he has a list of names, so I assumed that is the list of our class. So I responded "Steven Curry", and he gave me the ticket. I was relieved because since he had the list out and everything, he probably had a few people from our class already come by and pick up their free ticket. I walk upstairs as I learned my seat was a balcony seat, and I see almost our entire class already here. It felt very weird to me because throughout my entire high school career and most of my small amount of time in college, I have come to class 15-20 minutes early and I'm almost always the first or second person to arrive, and from what I can tell, I may have been one of the last people to arrive.

So I sit down and I see the stage; the outer wall behind the ring is made entirely out of brick (or made to look like it's made out of brick), and the ring is just a wooden platform, no ropes or anything. I thought it looked pretty impressive. The first scene is a boxing match that also acts as an introduction to two of the main characters: charismatic, determined boxer Jay "The Sport" Jackson (played by Thomas Silcott), and capable, but inexperienced Fish (played by Toran White). The way this match was done felt weird to me at the time. The ring announcer Max (played by Mark W. Soucy) introduced them individually, then Fish and Jay Jackson bumped their gloves together, but instead of facing each other, they stand in the same spot and turn towards the audience. The way they were represented, we, the audience, are meant to imagine they are facing each other, and when they talk out loud, that they are thinking to themselves. I understand that was the creative decision they were going for, and it didn't really detract from the story of the play itself, but at the time, it just felt weird to me. Even now, I ask to myself  "Couldn't they still have them face each other, and they could actually look like they were fighting each other?" because when they throw a punch to each other, instead of actually pretending to throw a punch or swing their arm, they stomp down on the ring, and the other person starts to stagger to pretend he's getting hit. And literally every time one of them talked, right after they finished a sentence, even though we're supposed to imagine they are thinking to themselves, they clap and the other characters in the background clap with them in unison, almost as if they can hear them think to themselves. I probably thought about this too much and I feel that this bugged more than it should have because I know what they were going for.

After the match, it is made more clear that Jay "The Sport" Jackson got his nickname because he's apparently so good, it's like he made the sport. He is apparently the African-American heavyweight champion, but he still wants more. He wants to fight the World Heavyweight Champion and become the first African American World Heavyweight Champion so badly, that when Max told him that the Champion wants 90% of the profits from the match, win OR lose, he still agrees.

Despite the weirdness of the fight that still gets me, I still found this to be a deep, powerful story. Jay wants to be the champ but his sister Nina (played by Ramona Lisa Alexander) wants him to think of the consequences that would come from an African-American boxer beating a white boxer. I personally wanted him to still go for it, but again, I would also worry about what would happen if he won.

I loved this play. I felt I could sort of relate to Jay, as I'm sometimes over-confident (quite over-confident) but despite what people say, I am still really determined to succeed, even if sometimes I look over potential consequences. The way they tried to have Nina convince him to fight, by talking about the little kids, and thinking about the whole African-American community in general, hit hard. Personally, if I was put in Jay's place, that might have actually convinced me to call off the fight.