Alley-oop

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This article was published 07/03/2025 (249 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Carlos Boozer, Ricky Davis and Darius Miles — unless you’re an NBA super-fan these names mean nothing to you.

But 22 years ago, these four men suited up alongside a teenager from Akron, Ohio, as his career in professional basketball tipped off in his home state. By virtue of the lineup card, Ilgauskas and Boozer, Davis and Miles got their answer to the following trivia question: where were you when LeBron James made his Cleveland Cavaliers debut?

In American playwright Rajiv Joseph’s King James, a hardwood comedy at the Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre, the moment is understood to have been treated as a coronation with dynastic implications, an opening statement for potential civic resuscitation and post-political unity.

Heavy is the headband that bears the Nike swoosh.

Could LeBron James save mankind? If not, might he at least save Cleveland from another half-century of pro-sports futility?

Director Ray Strachan’s all-star starting backcourt — Shawn (Eric Miracle) and Matt (Justin Fry) — says yes on both accounts.

Shawn, an aspiring writer, understands the temptation of an optimistic lede. Matt, a perpetual entrepreneur whose janky form lacks follow-through, has suffered enough losing seasons to recognize a potential winner when he strolls into a wine bar.

This two-hander begins as an indebted Matt tries to unload his season tickets on Shawn, riding the high of his first paycheque derived from creative writing. His per-word rate must have been pretty solid, because he eventually ponies up several thousand dollars for the right to witness the remainder of LeBron’s rookie season.

Matt’s happy to make a deal, but the seats, formerly shared with his father, are freighted with personal history.

Neither man is necessarily looking for friendship, but what develops over the course of their conversation — funny, wise and sometimes frustratingly circular — is a cautionary sitcom about getting more than what’s collectively bargained for.

In their RMTC debuts, both actors are in top form. Fry — part of the independent local company the 28th Minute —successfully portrays a character who treats himself as though he’s been mercilessly fouled even though he was born at the free-throw line.

Edmonton’s Miracle imbues Shawn with a persistent sense of humour and understated sadness. His hopes of creative satisfaction are deemed, if not always by others, then at least by himself, as bricks in waiting.

Cleverly, Joseph fashions King James as a drama of race disguised as a comedy of heirs, with Shawn, who is Black, having to constantly look past subtle instances of Matt’s white privilege and ignorance in order to maintain politeness.

Lit by Hugh Conacher in a combination of stadium and studio-audience lighting, pepped up periodically by Kevin Ramberran’s timestamp audio collages and cameos by sports broadcaster Darrin Bauming, the production leans into the stakes and spectacle of these characters’ ideologically challenging bromance: they love each other, but can’t say it in such simple words, and need each other in ways that neither man can explain in non-competitive terms. Every player, they agree, should have a strong team around him.

In this tête à tête, there’s a mutual covetousness and subdued territorial instinct, reflective of both John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation and Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope, two 20th-century works by white authors that playwright Joseph extends into pressing contemporary conversations about exceptionalism, race and American celebrity.

As the action unfolds — first in a wine bar and then in Matt’s parents’ oddity shop, both engagingly imagined by set designer Shauna Jones — discussions of sport give way to high-wire conversations of self-worth, uniform ownership and the contractual obligations randomly assigned by the lottery of birthplace.

Tracing the years 2003 to 2016, building upon the chronology of LeBron James’ career, it is not a spoiler to say that the star left Cleveland to shoot for the Heat in Miami.

It was a move that led his home crowd to deem him a traitor, as though he owed the city now burning his jersey in the streets a debt of gratitude deeper than seven years of faithful service.

Would you ever come home after your neighbours made you a living effigy?

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com