Everyone would like to think that sports – especially Olympic-level sports – are free of political contamination. But playwright Kemp Powers’s new play “The XIXTH,” just opened at The Old Globe, is here to show us otherwise.
The title refers to the 19th Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968, in which black American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith each raised a black- gloved fist on the winner’s stand as the national anthem was played. John Carlos won that race and Smith came in third. But the systemic racism that drove that protest – and the price they paid for it – are still being played out.
The 1960s were tempestuous years for American blacks, who saw and/or participated in the Watts riots and Malcolm X’s murder in 1965, and later the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.
Meanwhile, black American Olympic-level athletes were playing for the glory of a country that systematically denied them rights.
“The XIXTH” shows us in a series of fast-moving scenes what happened to two of them. John Carlos came from a farming family, and that his dad told him he could complete as long as he won.
Tommie’s mother Dora (Kimberly Scott) was a nursemaid. Tommie met John Carlos when both were students at San Jose State University.
The play also goes back in time to feature American Jesse Owens, the first winner of four track and field gold medals in one Olympics (the 1936 Berlin games). Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, also broke two world records.
But back to Juan Carlos and Tommie, who had a different outcome. They were suspended from the team and banned from the Olympic Village.
The play is a fast-moving, colorful and quite fascinating piece of theater, thanks in large part to the team assembled to make it. Bravo to Riw Rakkulchon for a malleable and colorful scenic design, and to Mika Eubanks for costumes that reflect the times. Allen Lee Hughes’ lighting and David R. Molina’s original music and sound design also contribute nicely to the atmosphere.
“The XIXTH” is both unusual theater and excellent (if sad) history. The U.S. still has a long way to go to get to racial equity.
No comments:
Post a Comment