Fighting Words - Sunil Kuruvilla's Earlier Work
Internationally Produced Play Provides Strong Roles for Women
When Sunil Kuruvilla wrote his earlier play Fighting Words, the women in his playwright's program at The Yale School of Drama were thrilled. Kuruvilla decided to write the tragic story of late Welsh Banterweight boxing champ Johnny Owen through the eyes of three women - Peg, Nia and Mrs. Davies.
Boxer wannabe Peg literally shadow-boxes whenever she can get the chance so Johnny is her sparring partner, and, she hopes, future husband. Nia, wants a career at the BBC, and just wants someone to listen to her, rather than a husband who ignores her. The gentle boxing giant is the perfect foil for Nia as she teaches Johnny how to handle the press junket.
Mrs Davies is the quintessential longsuffering miner's wife who has known Johnny since he was a baby, and often acts as a buffer when Peg and Nia argue over Johnny. Kuruvilla wrote three meaty roles for women in theatre based one of the most tragic events in boxing history. The men watched it live, the women watched in horror at home.
On Sept 19 1980, over 100 men from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales went to see banterweight Johnny Owen compete for the world title against Mexico’s Lupe Pintor. 24-year old Owen lost the fight, knocked out by his opponent and died of a coma two weeks later - another victim of "ring death".
Fighting Words focuses on the women's connection to Johnny Owen right up to his final fateful fight. The events of that night left the village of Merthyr Tydil devestated. Today Johnny "Matchstick Man" Owen is still considered a hero.
Did you feel an affinity with Johnny and are the women in the play based on the women in his life? He had a huge following.
Sunil Kuruvilla: “Johnny’s character, because he did have that gentle shy rather feminine side, allowed me to have a breakthrough, which was to tell the story from the point of view of the women. There were 100 men who left, but what about their spouses and their mothers? What did they do back home? 18 years later, I was able to realize how to write the story, which was to talk about boxing but through the eyes of women. A lot of women practice boxing now, but not so much in 1980. I was also really helped by an actress in the (Yale) acting program, so I pictured her as Peg while I was writing. Every year the playwrights get a student production of their work and all the playwrights and the women in the program liked the character of Peg, because it gave them a chance to be physical in the play."
Nia and Peg literally spar together physicially and emotionally. Tell me more about their characters.
Sunil Kuruvilla: "Their characters take various stances on the argument, are we more alive in our body or in our heads? Nia is very shy. Her husband just talks non-stop and he does not really let her get a chance to speak and she aspires to be on the radio (The BBC) to have an audience. Her husband doesn’t listen to her, but she wants the world to listen to her.
"Johnny is very shy and one of the components of a big fight is a press conference. Nia knows Johnny through words, so she helps him prepare for the press conference. Peg, is a freak in the town because she is a woman who wants to box. There is a line in the play when she and Nia are sparring about who knows Johnny best – is it in words or body?
"Peg says ‘Every Sunday, we meet at the church and at the dance we break away’ … and we hear the story of how Johnny takes Peg to the gym at night and lets her into the gym so the two can spar. Johnny allows Peg to be fully alive in her passion. He also allows Nia to be fully alive in hers. To keep Johnny awake and get him used to American time, Nia talks to him on the hillside where they have their tutorial lessons. So Nia has someone who finally listens to her talk. One explores language, the other explores the body. Mrs Davies embodies the lie that boxing requires.
Joyce Carroll Oates explores this nicely in her book On Boxing, saying when you watch a video or the fight with Johnny Owen and Lupe Pintor, you are essentially watching a snuff film. Yet, we do not confront that shock. It is just a boxing match and the presence of the referee with his bowtie, somehow makes it civilized.
"If you look at the facts of it, it is like a guy trying to knock the other guy out. I love boxing. I am fascinated and I love every big fight and watching it on the tube, or going to my favourite bar to watch it. There’s just this certain pact with the devil, that every boxing fan, if they think about it, is making to actually watch a fight.
Mrs Davies' ability to just gloss over the facts of her marriage and to live in the lies, in my way, is sort of symbolic of the spectators, or all the people that I mentioned, that just accept the lies of boxing. In the way the play is staged, Mrs Davis often serves as the referee."
Playwright Sunil Kuruvilla
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Writer Joyce Caroll Oates
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