Centerstage, on a wooden rectangular set, La’Tevin Alexander stands alone. He’s bathed in a yellowish glow, boxing-gloved fists extended towards the heavens in victory.
Alexander is currently portraying Jay “The Sport” Jackson in Writers Theatre’s production of “The Royale.” Jackson is a fictionalized version of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion who was a controversial figure in his day, infamously known for heavy drinking, gambling and dating white women.
In “The Royale,” playwright Marco Ramirez dramatically retells the story of Johnson’s legendary 1910 victory, when the boxer defeated white champion James J. Jeffries. The latter was, at the time, dubbed the “Great White Hope.”
For Alexander, learning to play the multilayered Johnson was a difficult journey that started long before he arrived in Chicago. The process of embodying the physical stature and movements of the heavyweight champion required not just training and focused workouts, but studying the real-life boxer’s bravado and speaking style.
“It’s hell,” said Alexander, thinking about the early stages of prepping for the role. Back in Portland, where the actor is based, he trained like a boxer — with workouts not focused on number of reps, but instead the duration of a round in the ring.
“It was crazy. I’m not even hitting a person, I’m punching either air or an inanimate object and I’m gassed. Like throwing up. It’s really tough,” he said.
In actuality, Jack Johnson was a complicated man. He often skirted the laws of Jim Crow and stayed in whites-only hotels. He only married white women, which eventually led to him to flee the country after being convicted under the Mann Act.
Even as an athlete, his legacy calls for nuance. His biggest victory, in which he defeated Jeffries, incited race riots that caused the deaths of Black people around the country.
“The Royale” is an amalgamation of two of Johnson’s fights: a bout with white champion Tommy Burns, and the match with Jeffries, who had retired undefeated and was considered to be the real champion. But underneath the fights themselves, Johnson, whether or not he agreed, fought for his race.
“It was basically a fight against the idea of white supremacy,” said dramaturg Kenya Ann Hall. “That is heavily displayed in this play. And that’s not hyperbolic. At the time, there were newspaper articles saying, ‘If Jim Jeffries loses, we don’t know what that means for the white race.’”
The production itself revolves around that highly anticipated boxing match and builds to that event in the show. And while the actual fighting on stage is heavily stylized, it requires careful choreography the actor must learn.
“It’s a boxing ballet,” said director Tyrone Phillips. “A lot of folks are scared at first when they hear about it because boxing can be brutal. And it’s almost primal behavior to fight someone. So, for me, what’s so important in the play, the art of it all, is they never land a punch on each other throughout the piece.”
Alexander had a leg up in the prep process. He’s played fighters before, including Muhammad Ali in Idris Goodwin’s “And in this Corner: Cassius Clay.” He said that role helped him prepare for taking on this version of Jack Johnson.
“Muhammad Ali talked a lot about how his style and his influence, not only as a man but as a boxer, came from Jack Johnson,” he said. “So, the hands down, you know, talking a lot, looking at the crowd, and playing around with your opponent — especially when you know after the first round I can knock you out whenever I want.”
When it came to capturing the essence of Johnson’s movements, Alexander got lucky. While the boxer’s career started in the early 1900s, film started to become more popular in the coming years, and the actor was able to find actual tape of Johnson’s historical fights.
“I used a lot of time trying to figure out, like how does he place his legs,” the actor said. “I worked on my legs not being so ‘bladed,’ you know not being such on a fine line being more like kind of squarish almost. And instead of putting my gloves by my ears, it’s more of like a primitive Philly shell, but with the power hand kind of like tucked into the elbow.”
During the show, these movements are fluid. Alexander said he worked with movement director Rasell Holt to perfect the prowess of Johnson. Phillips sprinkled in some stagecraft to drive the effect home.
“We’ve allowed people to feel like they’re ringside by using our stage like a drum,” said Phillips. “The hits are accentuated with stomps from the actors. The lighting design also tells you who’s getting hit at that time, and the actors are literally breathing and throwing those jabs, those hooks. Those real punches.”
Even now, with the production up and running, Alexander keeps up a rigorous routine to stay in shape.
“It’s still an ongoing process,” he said. Chatting in a second-floor lounge at Writers a week after opening night, the actor points out portraying a boxer on stage means maintaining the physique throughout the run of the show.
“This is literally my life right now,” said Alexander. “I’m cut, and I have muscles, but I’m not thick like Jack [Johnson] was. So, one of the biggest things I thought about is like, ‘OK, I don’t think that I’ll be able to get to 220 pounds. Not gonna happen. But I can get to 185 and really cut up.’”
And to keep it going, his regimen is simple: “Stay in the gym, eat whatever,” he explained. I am not trying to eat ‘good.’ I’m trying to eat any sort of calories, like empty calories, just a big plate of just whatever. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past like three, four months.”
Alexander said one thing he’s recently added to his process as an actor is a voice-first approach, which naturally leads to changes in physical behavior.
“If you change your voice, the first thing that’s going to change with it is your mouth, your eyes and your head,” he said, as he pantomimed movements with his speech pattern. “Then your shoulders will go a certain way. Then your rhythm is going to get switched up, which is going to then inform your entire body. So a lot of things are inspired by the voice.”
Mid-interview, Alexander, 35, flashes back and forth between being himself, and being Johnson. The change is palpable, with his Johnson impression carrying a slow southern drawl and flashes of what Alexander describes as the flamboyant boxer’s “devilish smile.”
But Alexander admits he must, at times, lean on the imagination of the audience to deliver Johnson’s character fully. “Onstage, the mind will go, ‘Ooh, yeah, that’s probably what 200 pounds looks like,’” he said. “So you just have to get close enough, and then let the magic [of theater] take care of the rest.”