Fetch Clay, Make Man

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Kirk Douglas Theatre
Through July 2

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It’s hard to imagine two public figures more dissimilar in their representation of the African American community than Stepin Fetchit, an actor whose fame rested on his clichéd portrait of a lazy shuffling Negro, and Muhammad Ali, a champion boxer and cultural icon who defied convention and whose embrace of Islam and criticism of the White Establishment cost him dear.

Yet historically, the two men were friends — or at the very least acquainted. A photo in which they appear together served as inspiration for playwright Will Power’s Fetch Clay, Make Man, which reflects not only on the struggle of Black men and women to preserve their dignity in our racist society but on the thorny role of religion and ideology in defining who we are as individuals.

Power espied the photo in a large coffee table book about Ali that he discovered in Marcus Book Store in San Francisco one day when he was browsing. It was taken in 1965 — which happened to be the year of the march on Selma, and two years following Martin Luther King’s clarion “I Have a Dream” speech. It was also the year that Malcolm X, at odds with the Nation of Islam, was assassinated. The photo was taken in May, on the eve of Ali’s return match with Sonny Liston, which he was widely expected to lose. It featured, according to Powers, Ali “and his entourage, which included his trainer, his bodyguards and his sidekick, looking defiantly into the camera.” What caught the playwright’s eye was the unlikely presence of Fetchit among them.

How and why was Fetchit there? So intrigued was Power by this anomaly that he wrote a whole play about it.

In his imagined scenario, Ali (Ray Fisher) has invited Fetchit (Edwin Lee Gibson in a sterling performance) to his dressing room to glean information about the technique of former boxing champ, Jack Johnson, whom Fetchit had known back in the day. How did Johnson defeat his rivals, Ali wants to know — or more specifically, did he have a “secret” punch that Fetchit knew about and that he could now relay to Ali himself to aid him in this confrontation with Liston?

Fetchit is caught off-guard and denies knowing anything of a secret punch — but his interview with Ali continues anyway. The celebrity boxer has taken a shine to the now frail and ailing former actor, much to the disgust of his valet and quasi-bodyguard Rashid (Wilkie Ferguson III), a Muslim and fanatical ideologue who hasn’t time for the likes of an “Uncle Tom” sellout like Fetchit.

Amidst the tensions and contrasts among these three men, the play speculates on the relationship between Ali and his first wife Sonji (Alexis Floyd), who passionately adores her husband and has converted to Islam at his request, but who is finding its harsh strictures on women demeaning. Her ire is especially fueled by the efforts of the self-righteous Rashid to define “her place.” A fifth character, the movie producer William Fox (Bruce Nozick) appears in flashbacks; in these we see a younger, healthier Fetchit at the height of his career — a moneymaker for both himself and the studios, and a smart tough negotiator on his own behalf. Fox (instead of being a cliché) gets to tell his story too —that of a self-made millionaire who clawed his way up from ghetto rubble. The role is a solid cameo, and Nozick, a veteran at playing tough-talking dudes, runs with it.

Fetch Clay, Make Man doesn’t deliver a narrative with a beginning, a clear middle and an end; it’s more a series of scenes with a landscape of views on religion, race and the role of women at a pivotal moment in our history. But it works supremely well as such because the characters through which its perspectives are filtered are so richly and skillfully drawn.

Directed by Debbie Allen, the story comes most spectacularly to life in Gibson’s intricately fashioned portrayal of a vulnerable elderly man who, despite physicals failings, remains nobody’s fool. Fisher, who performed the role of Ali in the play’s Off-Broadway premiere at New York Theatre Workshop in 2013, projects the bluster of the former champ but without the finely tempered nuances of a memorable portrayal. That missing nuance is likewise underdeveloped in the scenes between Ali and Sonji, a shortcoming I perceived as one of direction. Ferguson is despicably spot-on as a true believer who fails to respect the humanity of anyone who doesn’t support his cause.

Sybil Wickersheimer’s interior is spare and functional, with effective lighting by Tom Ontiveros and enhancing sound and composition by Lindsay Jones. Pablo N. Molina’s projection design provides historical scope. Sara Ryung Clement’s costumes for Sonji struck me as transitioning too swiftly and radically from Muslim garb to party dress without being especially flattering to the performer.

Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City; Tues.-Sat., 8 pm, Sat., 2 pm, Sun., 1 pm & 6:30 pm; thru July 2. https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/kirk-douglas-theatre/2022-23/fetch-clay-make-man/. Running time: two hours and 15 minutes with an intermission.