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Fighting Words
By Sunil Kuruvilla
Directed by Tara Mallen
Produced by Rivendell Theatre
At the Viaduct Theatre
3111 N. Western Ave
Chicago, IL
Call 773-472-1169, tickets $20
Thursdays thru Saturdays at 8 PM
(special Saturday matinee at 3 PM on April 15)
Sundays at 3 PM (no show on April 16)
Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission
Through April 23, 2006
“Sometimes you have to act happy before you really are.”
“Boxing is a stink that (the men) rub on each other.”
Quotes from Fighting Words
Fighting Words a stirring women’s perspective on boxing and small town life.
Rivendell Theatre company’s mission is to produce plays “that explore the unique female experience.” Their latest work, Fighting Words, penned by Canadian playwright and former boxer, Sunil Kuruvilla, is a worthy piece that takes time to engage us but ultimately delivers. Scenic designer Elvia Moreno’s boxing ring set complete with ropes is an apt symbol for the battles the women face coping with their desperation and their unfulfilled dreams in the small Welch hamlet of Merthyr Tydfil.
This coal mining town is known for its boxing. The local champion, Johnny “Matchstick” Owens is in Los Angeles to fight Mexican Lupe Pintor for the World Bantamweight Championship. All the town’s men followed Johnny to LA leaving the women to watch on TV. Three women, each with unique ties to Johnny, give their perspective on boxing, the fight, their boring, tedious lives as their existence seems to be filtered only through the men in their lives.
Set in 1980 Wales, Fighting Words features three women: Mrs. Davies (Marilyn Bogetich) is the middle aged midwife who helped Johnny be born. Her life is totally centered abound subservience to her husband. Nia (Lia Mortensen) is the 30something married woman who desperately wants to be a BBC radio announcer and is trapped in a loveless marriage. She gave Johnny lessons in how to handle the press. Her sister, Peg (Jenny Strubin) is the Tom-boy, want-to-be boxer who loves Johnny and hopes that he’ll marry her after he wins the championship. She actually sparred with Johnny.
The play’s awkward structure, opening at an emotional point well into the story seemed forced as Mrs Davis and Nia quietly stare at each other. Then the play flashes back to tell the story in sequence that delays our full engagement. Also, the annoying blackouts early on hurt the pace and flow of the show. The thick Welch accents hampered by some mumbling and seemed a tad forced making some early dialogue hard to understand. But once the actors settled in, Fighting Words started to deliver on life, boxing and dashed dreams.
Jenny Stubin’s (Peg) shadow boxing and sensual energy was infectious while Lia Mortensen’s (Nia) dislike for boxing and the small village and her marriage haunts her. Marilyn Bogetich’s (Mrs. Davies) is the classic loyal, robot-like wife who lives for her man. The three women gave terrific explanations of boxing complete with accurate demonstrations of basic boxing moves, punches and routines. Filled with cute, humorous local folklore and traditions, Fighting Words is an emotional journey that captures us. It is based on true events. Jenny Strubin’s monologue describing the fight was emotional wrenching.
Fighting Words jabs at the heart strings and lands a few gut-wrenching blows. The cast lands on their feet deftly. I liked this play and so will you.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed March 25, 2006
Fighting Words
Reviewed by Martha Wade Steketee
Women’s Lives Cycle Through the Boxing Ring and Back to Themselves
The Rivendell Theatre Ensemble production of Sunil Kuruvilla’s drama “Fighting Words” at the Viaduct Theater challenges and frustrates the viewer with glimpses of lovely writing, efficient story telling, and some production imbalances. The power of the writing and the three complicated women we grow to know in during the play’s ninety minutes is to be applauded and in the end argues that this production should be seen.
Boxer Johnny Owen traveled from small town Wales in 1980 to Los Angeles to fight for the world bantamweight championship. The men of the town traveled to see him fight. “Fighting Words” focuses on the lives of three women back home anticipating and finally rehashing this far away fight. The women represent the few possibilities for them at that time in a small Welsh town: thwarted aspirations for married aspiring broadcaster Nia (Lia Mortensen), misplaced expectations for her younger single sister and amateur pugilist Peg (Jenny Strubin), and the everyday functional fantasies of their married landlady Mrs. Davies (Marilyn Bogetich). The women anticipate and finally rehash the fight, and their own hopes and dreams, and make decisions about next steps in their lives.
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The play is structured as five scenes in one intermission-less ninety minute act, beginning in the middle of things. This is not linear story telling. The initial scene is followed by two scenes set several days before, a few days before the far away championship fight featuring Johnny the home town boy. The penultimate scene takes us back to the play’s beginning days after the fight, replaying the initially confusing but now clearer speeches, set for the first time in context. The scene continues with a first hand report about the boxing match and its after effects. The final scene provides resolution for the three characters: one steps into the rest of her life, another chooses to stay in her fantasy world, and the third is traumatized by the events that have transpired.
This structure is initially jarring: why the quick cuts and sudden shifts backward and forward in time? But this structural choice is increasingly common. And as with Craig Wright’s “Grace” (staged at Northlight Theatre earlier this year), this structural device of introducing a scene, moving ahead or back in time around that scene, then returning to it again so that the audience has now has back story to inform the characters’ interactions as they are portrayed a second (or third) time, can be a powerful dramatic technique as it is in this production.
“Fighting Words” contains gorgeous language that is not always well delivered (i.e. not always entirely clear). The three character structure of this piece requires that each holds up her end. The relative vocal weakness of the youngest character, at least in pulling off the explosive angry scene before taking off for the fight and her long and important descriptions of what she witnessed there when she returns to Wales, limits the ultimate power of this production. Perhaps vocal technique is not quite up to the challenge of the dramatic changes this character is asked to carry off. This may be something that that the young actress will grow into during the run of the show.
The set design by Elvia Moreno is streamlined, evocative, and functional. Seating the audience around the four sides of the playing area as boxing ring provides continued reminders of the central plot focus and metaphor for the play. The women actively discuss the upcoming fight and Peg actually shadow boxes through the first several scenes of the play. But other deeper themes are evoked by this structure. The audience members themselves remain conscious of their role observing the action and the role of the audience in observing and haranguing Johnny (as relayed by Peg in her final speech). In addition, the theme of women choosing to be “observers” or “participants” in their own lives is suggested by this play setting. The ropes of the fighting ring are configured in various ways as the play proceeds, and are finally brought down entirely, When the ropes come down, all three characters have moved on in some way and embraced their lives.
Direction by Tara Mallen is effective and creatively utilizes the limited space of the playing area. Movement director and choreographer Keely Jones and fighting coach Amber Gideon did a marvelous job with young Peg’s fighting moves. Sound design by Victorio Delorio creatively evoked broadcast off stage voices, the sounds of a kitchen (was that a kitchen radio?) and large congregate space noises. There was a particularly effective odd buzzing that deeply annoys the characters during the post-fight viewing scene we see twice. Keith Parham creates a simple lighting design appropriate for the set, effectively creating mood and movement. The production dramaturg, in this case Ben Calvert, must always be mentioned in my opinion. (Full disclosure, I am a member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.) While his specific contributions to the production are not delineated, the production notes and set details reflect an attention to historical research and respect for the lives of these characters.
The fighter Johnny dies for his dreams. The women who knew him make a range of decisions about what to do with what remains of their dreams and their lives. These women are worth getting to know.
Recommended
Martha Wade Steketee
msteketee@post.harvard.edu for comments
Date Reviewed March 25, 2006
Jeff recommended
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