By Bill Hirschman
When we tell you that the play King James centers on two rabid baskeball devotees talking in full court press about standings and players and sports in general, you might not be enthused enough to spend two hours hearing whether LeBron James was more a legend as the savior to the Cleveland Cavaliers than the sport’s ultimate hero Michael Jordan.
But trust us, the considerable verbal dribbling and turnovers in Rajiv Joseph’s season opener at Gablestage is only the top layer over the profound examination of the underlying defining themes of friendship and betrayal and returning home to find peace.
The circling and jump shots are only a metaphor, indeed a mirror, of the growing if uneven relationship between Matt, who tends a bar in the neighborhood wine bar in Cleveland Heights, and Shawn, a wannabe writer who comes looking to buy Matt’s tickets to a crucial Cavs game.
Over the ensuing 12 years – staged as four quarters in a game – their bond grows, deepens and becomes more complicated as they pursue dreams with cyclical up and downs.
Joseph (wrote the superb Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo seen at the Mosaic Theatre in 2013) has created an incisive journey that starts as two strangers who hook up simply due to their shared fandom. But they fuse their lives on one level, then struggle as their social and financial situations upend. By the last quarter, the now distanced men find ways to revive their camaraderie – primarily by putting aside their differences to realize the value of their bond – while still maintaining the differences by putting them into the proper place of priorities.
The spark inciting the linking was 2004 when the skyrocket rise of Cavs newcomer James whose breath-taking performance was often being compared with the equally famed but semi-retired Jordan. Then in 2010, the Ohio native James leaves the struggling Cavs for the Miami Heat. But then in 2014, he returns to the Cavs and leads them to their first championship in 50 years.
The drama on the floor equally excites, incites and angers the pair as they try to cope with issues of loyalty and betrayal that percolate under their own relationship. Even that description doesn’t match Joseph’s intricate examination of how people interact.
This production of an original 2022 Chicago premier quietly, even subtly, captures Joseph’s intricate dissection – delivered thanks to two memorable performances from a couple of pros, Melvin Huffnagle and Gregg Weiner, plus agile, smooth direction from Ruben Carrazana.
It’s a longed-for overdue “welcome home” for Weiner, one of the regions finest actors for decades, last seen here in 2021’s The Price.
Huffnagle, is a relative newcomer here as he has taken an assistant professor teaching acting at FIU. But he was a vet with The Layon Gray American Theatre in New York City. In October, he starred in Gablestage’s How I Learned What I Learned, inhabiting the spirit of August Wilson. (See review at http://www.floridatheateronstage.com/general/how-i-learned-what-i-learned-opens-gablestages-25th-season/)
Once again, Weiner delivers a masterful performance as Matt’s personality and situation flow back and forth – while his troubled past quietly rumbles below and through all of it under Weiner’s surface.
But Huffnagle whom the playwright intentionally imbues with a more volatile temperament often expressed with nimble athletic explosions that sometimes has him standing on tables. Yet he dives just as deeply in Shawn’s inner wranglings.
Huffnagle’s name in future reviews and season schedules should be a tip off to make a reservation.
But Carrazana, a Miami native who has worked in Dallas and now in Chicago, is the essential third member of the forward squad. He reflects the ever fluctuating bond with physical staging. The timing, the changing pace, the ever flexible undertones are his choreography.
The costumes by Lorena Lopez perfectly but subtly expressed the characters’ evolving character, social standing and fiscal health – down to the changing sneakers they wore in the four scenes to the shirts they wear. Shawn wears a bowling alley-like shirt when he temps as staff at Matt’s mother’s store; Matt wears a classy T-shirt advertising the luxurious new restaurant he has created.
Each quarter is separated by videos of games with pulsating music. Scenic designer Frank J. Oliva once again creates two distinct environments: Matt’s bar La Cave du Vin and his mother’s curio shop jammed with oddities that each man will work in at some point.
The entire effort posits that elastic tumult of sports is far more like life – and life like sports — than we realize. And there are lessons in both to be absorbed.
King James runs through Nov. 24 at GableStage, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. Call 305-445-1119 or visit gablestage.org for tickets. Running time about two hours with a 15-minute intermission. Tickets range from $40 to $65.