“Royale” Pulls No Punches

Two men are in the ring, jabbing, swinging, and dodging, trading taunts while they trade blows. One is a stronger fighter, and he lets the other one know it. The stronger fighter wears his opponent down both physically and psychologically. He wins because he gets into his opponent’s head. After the fight, the winner calls the loser into his room, not to taunt him some more, but to hire him to be a sparring partner. Because the winner — Jay ​“The Sport” Jackson — has his eyes on a bigger prize. He wants to be the heavyweight champion of the world. That means beating the current champion, and this being the turn of the last century, it also means breaking some color barriers.

But is the prize worth the price?

That’s the question that drives The Royale by Marco Ramirez, a play as muscular and quick on its feet as its subject. It’s running at Collective Consciousness Theatre from March 28 to April 14.

Jackson (Christopher Bethune) — clearly modeled on the historical Jack Johnson, who became the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world in 1910 — is a smart, charming, and talented boxer who is also bursting with ambition. His boxing record already makes him the best African-American boxer around; he’s pretty sure he could be the best boxer around, period. Standing in his way: the current heavyweight champion of the world, a white boxer who goes by the name of Bixby. Standing in his way in a larger sense; Jim Crow.

Jackson has a few people on his side. ​“Fish” Hawkins (Oliver Sai Lester), his sparring partner, is as eager as Jackson is to make his mark on the world. Wynton (Gregoire Mouning), his trainer, supports Jackson in his championship bid, even as he’s all too knowledgeable about the social costs. Max (Ian Alderman) his manager, believes in Jackson’s talent, but like Wynton, isn’t sure the world is ready for an African-American champion. Jackson insists on challenging Bixby anyway. Bixby agrees to a fight so long as he gets 90 percent of the winnings, win or lose — a deal Max doesn’t expect Jackson to take. But Jackson takes it. So he starts a series of exhibition fights, moving closer and closer to the big show, and getting in more and more danger. There are reports that some spectators are bringing weapons to the matches, ready to take Jackson down a peg, or out altogether. Finally, Jackson is confronted by his sister Nina (Tamika Pettway), who tells him that people are threatening his family with violence if he wins.

The big fight with Bixby still looms on the horizon. Should Jackson keep fighting? If he gets in the ring, should he even try to win?

Ramirez’s tightly-wound play turns the screw tighter and tighter with every scene. It’s a play tailor-made for a stage like Collective Consciousness Theatre, here built to feel like a sparring ring, and we its morally questionable spectators (are we here to see a man killed?). In this increasingly claustrophobic space, the actors shine. Lester’s Hawkins is a proud young man learning quickly how high the deck is stacked against him. Mouning plays Wynton as a sage who has a lot more faith in his protege than he does in the rest of the world. Alderman plays Max as almost part carnival barker, just sleazy enough that you see why Jackson doesn’t entirely trust him.

But the play really kicks it up a notch with Nina’s arrival later in the play; Pettway plays her as a strong woman caught in a man’s world, angry that her brother’s ambition has put her and the ones she loves in harm’s way. Jackson’s relationship to each of the people in his life lets Bethune play his character as a man in full. We see Jackson at his cocky best, with shades of Muhammad Ali on display at a press conference. We see him at his strongest, as when he’s nurturing his own sparring partner. We also see him at his most vulnerable, when Nina confronts him about the cost of his dreams to him and those around him.

It all makes the final scene a real nail-biter. It wouldn’t be a satisfying story if Jackson didn’t get his shot at dethroning Bixby as heavyweight champion. But by the time he gets in the ring, you’ve been made far too aware of what’s at stake to fully cheer him on. You’re afraid of what might happen if he loses. You’re even more afraid of what might happen if he wins. You don’t even really know if he’ll come out of it alive. The Royale is thus a potent story of the civil rights movement. The questions it asks — about whether the progress made is always worth the price paid, in toil, in pain, in loss of human lives — hit hard, like a quick jab to the face you don’t see coming.

The Royale runs at Collective Consciousness Theatre, in Erector Square at 319 Peck St., from March 28 to April 14. Click here for tickets and more information.