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Give 'Great White Hope' an opportunity
(by Herb Hammer - March 03, 2010)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
Give 'Great White Hope' an opportunity
When Jack Johnson broke the color barrier of heavyweight championship boxing, the world became a different place. We have come a long way since. But that doesn't make Howard Sackler's 1967 play "The Great White Hope" any more relevant than it is today.
The new Karamu Theatre production in cooperation with the Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland and Akron's Weathervane Playhouse lets out all the stops of Mr. Sackler's overlong, humorless Pulitzer Prize winner.
The action takes place in 1908 when Jack Johnson won the championship and continues to 1915 when he lost it. The events in between make up Mr. Sackler's rewarding effort.
Using all the resources at his command, Mr. Sackler not only changes Jack Johnson's name to Jack Jefferson, he plays fast and loose with the facts. This is a play, after all, which gives the playwright as much freedom as he needs.
But don't get your hopes up. The play is burdened by an enormous 45-member cast, a three-hour playing time filled with 19 scenes, many of which are overplayed to the point of exasperation.
The heart of the play surrounds the touching and somehow corrosive love affair between Jack Jefferson and his lovely, devoted lover Eleanor Bachman. Couple that with the seven-year efforts of local and federal officials to unseat the black championship with a white man. These two circumstances are the main thrust of the play.
After Jefferson is convicted under the Mann Act, he skips bail and with Eleanor, his trainer and his manager head for Europe where Jack Jefferson does what he can to bring in some money.
In one scene in Budapest, Jefferson, his trainer and his stunning girlfriend do a botched version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in a local nightclub. This scene is better than many of the shouting and wailing scenes that run throughout the production.
Finally, the government tells the champion if he throws the next fight to a white man, his sentence will be reduced. There is some controversy as to whether Jack Jefferson gave into the deal. The truth may be that the real Jack Johnson, aging and slowed, lost to Jess Williard in 1915.
Anthony Nickerson-El is a magnificent Jack Jefferson, proud and determined and always smiling. Mr. Nickerson-El brings his character to a height of racial injustice.
As Eleanor Bachman, the beautiful white woman who holds the boxer dear to her heart, Ursula Cataan, always and on stage a pleasure to watch, captures the devotion of the tragic beauty.
The rest in this huge cast of talented actors gives it their all. Most often, it's too much. It's a mystery as to who should take the fall of damaging this renowned work. Is it the directing of Terrence Spivey who doesn't appear to have the courage to find the subtilties and humor in this long-winded work? Or is it the actors whose high pitch, in-your-face individual portrayals that could cause you to leave early?
Most likely, the over-40-year-old play itself has become somewhat dated.
Surely, Howard Stackler was influenced by Muhammed Ali's refusal to go to Vietnam and by the racial unrest of the 1960s.
The very effort of all involved is to be highly commended. The unwieldy play is a mammoth project, one that is rarely attempted. Though troubled, this production should be seen.
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