KING JAMES
“The Cavs saved my life”
It’s a somewhat dramatic statement, even for a die-hard basketball fan, but in Rajiv Joseph’s, King James, it’s fitting. Joseph’s play, about two lifelong fans of the Cleveland team most famous for being the original home of the legend that is LeBron James, brings two men—who feel lost and alone—into each other’s lives, changing them both, and saving them both, for good.
King James tells a beautiful story about the treasures made when chance meets intentionality, and how true friendship can be life-changing in big ways, but more importantly in smaller ones.
Matt (Sam Mitchell) and Shawn (Enyi Okoronkwo) are die-hard Cavaliers fans, both of them claiming that at some point the team had “saved their lives”. It’s this deep-rooted love for the team that brings them together. Matt is selling season tickets to help clear off his debts, and Shawn is eager to buy them. As they bicker about the arrival of a then-rookie Lebron James, their shared passion for the sport and home team seeps out of them, and the conversation makes them realise they share a lot more. This marks the beginning of an intimate brotherhood that spans the duration of Lebron’s sporting career, including his controversial departure to the Miami Heat, and his even more controversial return.
Originally intended to be a single scene, Joseph notes that one of the most amazing things about Lebron’s twenty-two year career is its longevity and this is what is captured in the growth of Matt and Shawn’s friendship which runs parallel to it.
We get through four chapters of Matt and Shawn’s friendship, mirroring the four quarters played in a typical basketball game, through career pivots, family deaths, and iPhone updates. Their financial situations fluctuate with the political climate, and they sometimes do not see eye to eye. There is always the sense however, that there is so much love there, even when they are at complete loggerheads. With Caitlyn Keaney’s costume supervision alongside Max Pappenheim’s sound design, we go from 2003 to 2014 through the characters’ fashion and music. The play first takes place in the bar that Matt works in, the breeding ground neutral but intimate enough for both Matt and Shawn to ignite a friendship, and eventually the antique store owned by Matt’s family.
Through sport these two men are able to express so many of the emotions that the rigid structures of society may not allow them to freely. Joseph uses his own love for the Cavaliers and basketball as a vehicle for his characters’ journeys. In meeting each other they meet different versions of themselves.
While there is no actual basketball in the play, and very little action; the conversation and depths of emotion that both characters experience carry the story without being too heavy. Dipping into pockets of humour, anger, loss and joy Mitchell and Okoronkwo are so delightful on stage. They are able to maintain the nature of the characters at the start all the way through to the end, while also seamlessly incorporating the subtle changes that they go through. The chemistry between them is sublime, and they are a joy to watch.
The play touches often on the ideas of legacy and the importance of one’s roots. While Matt and Shawn’s lives aren’t always running at the same pace which puts them at odds, they are able to find their way back to each other when they come back to where they started in a physical and metaphorical place they call home; just like Lebron finally winning a championship with his home team when he makes his own big return.
King James ultimately is reflective, sincere and while light-hearted, evocative and thought provoking. Joseph’s writing is natural and still impactful, leaving us with a feel-good play that touches the heart.
★★★★★
By Melody Adebisi