This is a wonderful production of a wonderful play.
It’s also one of the funniest, most joyous, serious plays I’ve seen.
I mean this: though grounded in realism, the territory explored by Rajiv Joseph’s King James is exuberance.
Two men become friends through a shared enthusiasm for the Cleveland Cavaliers and its star player LeBron James. These men need each other, but no relationship remains static or fixed.
It’s sometimes suggested that male friendships are shallow because they consist of two men looking in a similar direction rather than at each other. But there’s something to be said for not staring too closely at the other person. After all, there is no essential truth to see. The assertion I know you completely is not love; it’s control. All of us change, and any attempt to definitively sum up or categorise an individual is misguided. Each of us is more a happening than a thing. The essential you is just a careless, or convenient, construct.
The scene in which Joseph has the issue of race raise its ugly head is a masterclass in this type of richness in dramatic writing. To witness these two extremely likable characters tear at each other is heart-rending. In any play, the conflict can represent a wider cultural tension, but if we don’t feel it in all its irreducible messiness in the actual characters, if we read it solely as a critique of society, what’s the real takeaway? That individuals are of little value. The glory of theatre is that it’s fundamentally existential; it knows that Life is what happens to you while you’re otherwise occupied maintaining some grand narrative. (There was a logical consistency in the Puritan dislike of theatre. They understood what it had in common with the Prince of Darkness; like the Devil, Life is in the details.)
Directed by Bali Padda, the performances by Aaron Glenane and Tinashe Mangwana are brilliant. They portray beautifully characters who are gorgeously vulnerable, the desire for an ongoing relationship carefully and doggedly navigating friendship’s envies, awkwardnesses and sensitivities. This wary gentleness is brought into glorious relief by tremendous bursts of jubilant energy (including one extraordinarily fun scene change.) Designer Ian Kanik does a terrific job creating the play’s two settings in the Old Fitz space (and filling them with some oddly specific, but absolutely, crucial props.)
Joseph’s dialogue is superb. The affectionate raillery between the two men is pitch perfect. Who is the G.O.A.T? Michael Jordan or LeBron James? And equally delightful are the hyperbolic expressions of fanatic admiration. The claim that James is capable of teleportation nails the glee with which sports fans manage to find glimmers in a world where others see only triggers.
But, no, don’t worry. You don’t need to know anything about basketball. You don’t even need to like sport.
The joy of this show is utterly infectious.
Paul Gilchrist
King James by Rajiv Joseph
at The Old Fitz until Jun 29
Image by Daniel Asher Smith
Theatre Red 
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