Theatre Review: Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch, The Royal Court (London), 11/06/10

I've never been to the opening night of a professional production. By a happy accident, I found myself among the first few hundred people to ever see Roy Williams' latest play. Before the lights dimmed, The Royal Court's Artistic Director, Dominic Cooke, informed the audience that the production schedule was running behind and that the night was indeed the first time the actors had performed in full costume and with all technical cues. Effectively, we were watching an open dress rehearsal.

Not that anyone would have noticed, of course. This is not the first play in which Roy Williams has used sport as an allegory for what is happening in contemporary Britain: anyone who saw his 2002 play Sing Yer Heart Out For the Lads can testify to that. Williams is a self-confessed sport-addict; he is also highly aware of attitudes toward race and immigration and sport's role in shaping those attitudes. With Sucker Punch, he takes a look at our recent history, along the way commenting on ambition, compromise and how race still gets in the way of how British society sees itself. It is both nostalgic and eerily contemporary: although it is unlikely a 20-year-old white man would refer to black people as "darkies" and "their lot", today, the sentiments and sterotypes remain. The language is either staunchly that of the white working-class or Jamaican Patois which has a slightly clichéd and stylised effect, but does not suffer from this, since the historical distancing technique is clearly meant to be the result of this.

The play is also about the relationship between Daniel Kaluuya's conformist Leon and Anthony Welsh's rebellious Troy. Both are forced to clean the toilets and floor of the boxing gym they break into before the start of the play, owned by Nigel Lindsay's Charlie; both have talent and both become champion boxers. While the former stays and is trained by Charlie, the latter refuses to be another Uncle Tom or white man's toy and relocates to the United States, where he is exploited by a black boxing promoter - played by Gary Beadle - instead. The two are pittied against each other in an intense finale, tragic irony of which is highlighted by troy's father who says: "White people love nuttin' better than to see two black men beat up on each other. They too scared to do it theyself." There is only one winner in the ring, but both have failed.

The audience experience is heightened further by Sacha Ware's staging, the Royal Court's Jerwwod Theatre being refitted in the shape of a commercial boxing ring. The audience become spectators of so much more as the real world merges with that of the play and that of the sport. This realignment of perspective intensifies the reception of the performances, and I have nothing but praise for the cast, almost all of whom are excellent, particularly Welsh and Lindsay. Finally, at just over an hour and a half with no interval, the play really does feel like a match, as the finale is played out in the stalls as well as in the ring, Troy and Leon making spectacular entrances among the crowd. I was spellbound, and I don't like sport.

Probably the most accomplished new play on in the West End at the moment, Sucker Punch is a powerful, entertaining, and challenging production which will no doubt be talked about for decades to come; and I saw it on its opening night!