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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > November > 15 > Entry
Review: ‘Fight’
It’s not every day that people who love theatre and people who love boxing would jump at the chance to attend the same event.
But “Fight,” a world premiere play by University of Texas graduate student Kimber Lee, should be able to draw both crowds by combining a classic story of a young woman trying to find her place in the world with a live three-round boxing match that has plenty of actual punches.
“Fight,” directed by Lee and Charles Otte and produced by UT’s Department of Theatre and Dance, is at heart the story of an underdog.
Dani (Christen Perez) is adrift. Abandoned by her mother, she is taken in by her fast-talking, exuberant aunt, Tia (a lively Jaclyn Benavidez), and her estranged father (Chris Rangel) who used to be a boxer.
She wanders into her father’s old boxing gym and meets a no-nonsense coach named Papi (an excellent and convincing Aaron Alexander) and a fellow fighter James (Matrex Kilgore). Dani isn’t entirely sure why she’s there and her attempts at training are half-hearted. You don’t mess around in Papi’s gym, though, and soon he gets the normally reserved Dani to explode with her real reason for wanting to fight.
The boxer-in-training storyline is familiar territory (especially in the cinema), and some of “Fight’s” best moments are when it embraces the fact that, unlike in a movie, the performers are live, and so is all the action.
When a group of young boxers trains at the gym, we can hear their fists slamming into their targets and see the sweat beads forming on their foreheads. When Dani steps into the ring for her first match with rival boxer Alicia (Megan McQuaid), the unpredictability and sense of danger in the live fight is exciting.
Like any new play, “Fight” still has some kinks to work out. But underneath all the old boxing clichss, “Fight” has a contemporary energy, a sense of theatrical freshness.
It’s not the expected story about a female boxer trying to make it in a male-dominated sport, but instead the story of a woman trying to overcome the hurts of her past by finding something in her life that’s worth fighting for.
“Fight” continues 8 p.m. Nov. 17-19 at 8:00 p.m., 2 p.m. Nov. 21, Brockett Theatre, Winship Building, 300 E. 23rd Street. $15-$20. www.texasperformingarts.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman arts freelancer.
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