Playwright Sunil Kuruvilla's Fighting Words
Author of Rice Boy on his play about Johnny "Matchstick Man" Owen
Johnny Richard Owen, who hailed from Merthyr Tydfil, in South Wales, was one of eight children, quiet, and shy, humble and unassuming, almost “skeletal” in appearance, hence the nickname “Matchstick Man.” But once inside the boxing ring, Johnny Owen became a fierce opponent and eventually the Banterweight Champion of Europe.
On November 4 1980, The Matchstick Man died from a coma caused by head injuries sustained from a fight in Los Angeles Sept 19, 1980 – another victim of ring death. Sunil Kuruvilla never forgot that day.
Where did the idea to write Fighting Words come from?
“I sometimes think that this was a play that took 18 years to write. As a kid, I was a boxer locally – not just a boxer, but a skinny boxer. I was light weight ,132 pounds six foot one, and I was really into boxing. I was really into watching all the big guys, because they used to have boxing on Saturday afternoons when it was still popular on American network television.
“They showed a clip from the previous night’s fight of a Welsh kid who had come over to Los Angeles to fight for a world title. He was frighteningly skinny – five feet eight inches, 118 pounds. You could see his ribs and he looked like he was starving. Immediately, I was gripped by his story. I was skinny boxer looking at another skinny boxer and realizing for the first time, the danger of the sport.
“This guy fought valiantly (in Los Angeles) but was sent into a coma in the 12th round. Watching that clip from what had happened the night before, I knew I wanted to write about it. But I didn’t know how to do it without it being Rocky or Raging Bull or a typical treatment of the story. Everytime there was a ring death, and there have been over 600 since 1964, it‘s frightening how many guys die from blows to the head."
Johnny Owen died of a blood clot…
“Yes, and I was always keeping files and articles about ring death but I just didn’t know how to write about it. Then when I was at grad school for playwriting, (Sunil got his MFA from The Yale School of Drama) 18 years later in 1998, I remember all of a sudden being able to write about ring death.
The original play I wrote was about a woman from Columbia, a woman from Puerto Rico, and a woman from Wales – the mother, the wife, and the girlfriend of the boxers. They would gather at the gravesite of one of their fallen every year and put on a shadow puppet / shadow boxing show.
So that was your first draft of the script?
"I showed the play to one of the staff faculty members at Yale, the Head of Directing. The play had been getting some buzz at school. It had a reading and people were excited about it, so I took it to the Head of Directing, and I expected her to be pretty complimentary and she wasn’t.
"She read it and said 'on the dog sh*t level of reality, I just don’t buy it that three working class women could afford to fly around the world.' I thought she had a good point. I had a meeting with her before Christmas, came away, and came back here ( to Canada) resentfully thinking about what she had said. I rewrote the play. I realized it needed to be focused on one boxer and it should just take place in Wales. I narrowed it down just to deal with Johnny Owen
Playwright Sunil Kuravilla
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Welsh Champion Banterweight Boxer Johnny Owen
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