By: PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer | ∞
"In This Corner"
On June 22, 1938, a battle of epic proportions unfolded in a boxing ring at Yankee Stadium. The Alabama-born "Brown Bomber," Joe Louis, was set to defend his heavyweight boxing title in a rematch against Germany's great white hope, Max Schmeling, in a fight that carried with it the immense symbolic weight of the looming struggle between American democracy and Nazi fascism.
On Saturday, the starting bell will ring again when "In This Corner," a new stage drama about the famous Louis-Schmeling matchup, makes its world premiere at the Old Globe's Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Commissioned by the Old Globe for the small, square theater-in-the-round and directed by Ethan McSweeny (who helmed last year's award-winning "A Body of Water" at the Globe), Steven Drukman's play brings together the two pugilists and the media and handlers who molded them into legends in a drama that spans three decades.
In the 1930s, there was no bigger sports story than the Louis-Schmeling fight, and no greater athlete than Louis, who was recently ranked the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization and the No. 1 puncher of all time by Ring Magazine. Born in 1914 to impoverished Alabama field hands, Joe Louis Barrow began boxing at the age of 10. By age 20, he was the Golden Gloves light heavyweight champ, and he grew into a national hero in 1935 when he scored a pair of impressive knockouts against heavyweights Primo Carnera and Max Baer.
But he met his match in 1936, when Germany's Schmeling, who'd detected a flaw in Louis' technique (the tendency to drop his left arm after delivering a punch) and dealt Louis the only defeat of his career. Louis went on to win the heavyweight crown in 1937 ---- beating James J. "Cinderella Man" Braddock ---- a title Louis would hold for an unprecedented 11 years and 25 title defenses, but it wasn't until he faced Schmeling again in 1938 that Louis felt he had earned the right to the title.
Drukman's play profiles the Louis-Schmeling fights, as well as the cordial relationship that grew between the two men in later years. After World War II, Louis struggled with ill health and more than $1 million in tax debts, and Schmeling (who prospered after the war as a German distributor for Coca-Cola) befriended Louis and helped pay some of his debts, including Louis's funeral expenses.
Drukman talked about his new play in a telephone interview from New York last week.
Q: Where did the idea for "In This Corner" come from?
A: I approached Jerry (Patch, the Old Globe's co-artistic director) about a year ago when he visited New York. I'm a classic boxing fan. I loved Muhammad Ali when I was a kid. And I couldn't believe there had never been a major play about Joe Louis. He had a great story that needed to be told.
Q: This play is much more than the story of Joe Louis, though.
A: I didn't want to do just a bio play. Those are boring. It's more about the forces that made Joe. They took his name and gave him a new name and then took away his name. It's about the way he was mistreated by this country after they didn't have any use for him anymore. The same thing happened to Max Schmeling. After he lost to Louis, he was abandoned by his country.
Q: How were they used by their countries?
A: These were two men who were asked to stand for something that they had nothing to do with. Max Schmeling was used by Hitler as a symbol of Nazi power, but he never joined the Nazi party and during Krystalnacht, he hid two Jewish boys from the Nazis. Joe was used as a symbol of democracy but he wasn't even allowed to use the same drinking fountains and couldn't stay in the same hotels as white Americans. It was a situation fraught with irony.
Q: Besides the two boxers, the play has some key characters who are sportswriters. Why do they play such a big role in the play?
A: The 1930s were a golden age for sportswriting. There were dozens of newspapers at the time and these writers thrived on mythologizing sports figures (like Babe Ruth, Braddock, Seabiscuit and Joe Louis). These guys (sportswriters) were not very well-schooled and they wrote in this kind of purplish, colorful way .... alliteration was considered good writing ... and it was an interesting sort of Ben Hecht-style language I wanted to use. It was the color that made the world of this play.
Q: This play brings Joe Louis and Max Schmeling together late in their lives. How much of this is truth and how much is fiction?
A: To call them friends is an overstatement. They only saw each other a few times after the 1938 bout and many of those meetings were staged, like Schmeling's surprise appearance on (a 1954 television episode of) "This Is Your Life" about Louis. But they clearly enjoyed seeing each other and Max helped pay Joe's debts. I used some theatrical license in writing their scenes together, but what I hope comes out of it is that whatever anybody else said or wrote about them, they had this unnameable something that existed for them in those moments they were in the ring together, and it's something only they themselves could touch.
Q: While researching the lives of these two men, did you discover any new insights or surprises?
A: It was fascinating learning about Max and what a chameleon he was. He was so morally and ethically slippery and he didn't stand for anything. He was always speaking out of two or three sides of his mouth. He was really a remarkable survivor. He was popular in the Weimar, Germany, era; then he survived Hitler without joining the Nazi party, then he thrived in post-war Germany.
Joe Louis, on the other hand, was a great fighter in the ring, but he had no ability to survive outside of it. From the beginning of his career, he had people who handled him, managed him and took care of him. Outside the ring, he couldn't manage his life at all.
Yet he was wildly popular in his day. If you were an African-American of a certain generation, you named your kid "Joe" or "Louis," or you daughter "Josephine" or "Louise," out of respect for what he accomplished. Joe Louis beat Hitler's boy and was the world's best fighter and that was an undisputable fact for years and years. It was very affirming for the African-American community because they were treated as second-class citizens.
Q: How have you enjoyed working on this play at the Old Globe?
A: It's been the best experience. Jerry (Patch) is known throughout the theater world as the champion of new plays. There is no other dramaturge like him and finding a good dramaturge is gemlike. They champion your work and they help you find your play as you write it. It's even rarer to find a good director, and Ethan (McSweeny) has a natural talent and he brings an incredible energy and ambition to this play. I'm very excited to see this come together in San Diego.
"In This Corner"
When: Opens Jan. 5 and runs through Feb. 10; showtimes, 7 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Where: Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Old Globe Theatre complex, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $42-$59
Info: (619) 234-5623
Web: www.theoldglobe.org
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