Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch

By far, the best play we've seen on the trip was Sucker Punch by Roy Williams. The play was set in 1980's England, dealing with racism and bigotry against Afro-Caribbeans, which was (according to the play) deeply felt by all, even those Caucasians who lived by and worked with them on a day-to-day basis.

As you will see in the videos below, the play was set in a boxing ring as the main characters are boxers-in-training, spanning their career from the moment they first stepped into the ring until they reach the heights of professional fame. The most affecting moment for me was the father of the protagonist telling his son that the only reason he is famous is because a white audience likes nothing better than to watch two black men beating the life out of each other.

I sat ring-side and was at first aghast at the rampant use of epithets (racial and homophobic) and felt entirely turned off by the subject matter. But, as the play progressed, I found myself wrapped up in my own experiences as a biracial male, a glimpse into what the courting experience must have been like for my parents (a black man and white woman in 1971/2--in the US, but not much different--particularly in the way the father speaks to his daughter about her choosing to date a black man and her refusal to speak to him for a time after), and considered the implications for today--in a world that still struggles with these same issues. This has particular relevance to the lives of public school teachers as we make curricular decisions. The program for the play included the script and I look forward to working through it to discover the educational opportunities present in the text.