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‘King James’ Honors the ‘Language of Sports’ Spoken by American Men

Rajiv Joseph’s play, loosely about LeBron James, is rooted in friendship, basketball and social realities.
Ashwini Gangal
Shawn (Kenny Scott) and Matt (Jordan Lane Shappell) share their love of basketball in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's ‘King James.’  (Kevin Berne)

When Rajiv Joseph first wrote King James, a play about the friendship of two LeBron James fans, Shawn and Matt, it was drafted as a single scene. Eventually, he turned it into a four-part story — loosely mirroring the four quarters of a basketball game — that takes place over several years.

“I realized I needed to have a play that spanned the length of time, because part of LeBron’s appeal and his legacy is his longevity,” said the Pulitzer-nominated playwright. “And part of the story is how the emotions towards him ebbed and flowed over time because of different fortunes.”

Directed by Joseph’s longtime workmate Giovanna Sardelli, and running through Nov. 3 at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Mountain View, King James reflects contemporary social realities in that its protagonists belong to different races and economic backgrounds. At its heart, though, it’s a nod to the way men use sports to express otherwise repressed emotions. “They have a sort of ‘code,’” Joseph said.

This theme came from Joseph’s own friendships growing up. “We have this language of sports, this rivalry between teams and our opinions of players that get very fierce,” he said.

Shawn (Kenny Scott) and Matt (Jordan Lane Shappell) in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s ‘King James.’ (Kevin Berne)

The deepest impression was made by his good friend, actor Glenn Davis who is also the artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where King James premiered in March 2022. Davis played Shawn. He was also in the cast of Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which premiered in California in 2009 and later went to Broadway.

Davis and Joseph have been friends for decades and share a love of basketball. “He’s from Chicago, I’m from Cleveland, he’s a Jordan guy, I’m a LeBron guy and so those arguments and debates also filter into the story in a major way,” said Joseph.

Team sports, especially of the kind associated with regions and cities, are about a great deal more than simply watching one’s favorite athletes in action, Joseph said. “There’s so much of one’s identity, one’s upbringing, one’s family and friends that’s connected to the performance of a team… that sense of it, the sense of belonging somewhere. All those factors are kind of what inspired the play somewhere for me.”

Shawn (Kenny Scott) and Matt (Jordan Lane Shappell) in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s ‘King James.’ (Kevin Berne)

Joseph’s own identity has informed this piece in a big way. Not his mixed-race identity — his dad is Indian, his mom is part French-part German — but the part that ties him to the place he was born and raised: Cleveland.

“In the case of this play, the identity that comes across of mine is my identity as a Clevelander — as an East Side Clevelander,” he said. Autobiographical elements are aplenty; the entire play takes place in a suburb of the city called Cleveland Heights, where Joseph grew up. Matt went to Heights High School, where Joseph went. Shawn went to St. Ignatius High School, the Catholic private school that Joseph’s grandfather and uncles went to — “that I was supposed to go to, but I begged my parents not to go to,” Joseph said.

Also playing into the creation of this play was the “implicitly dramatic” relationship between the city of Cleveland and LeBron. “You know, he’s from the region, he came here, we loved him, he left Cleveland, we hated him, he came back to Cleveland, we loved him…” he said, recounting James’ career.

By his own admission, it’s these aspects that make King James a “decidedly American play,” as compared to much of his previous work. For instance, Guards at the Taj (2015), about the cruelty behind the construction of the Taj Mahal, remains his most internationally produced play.

Shawn (Kenny Scott) and Matt (Jordan Lane Shappell) in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s ‘King James.’ (Kevin Berne)

“The story of King James is an American story, and a Cleveland story, and it deals with the racial dynamics between white and Black people in this country,” he said. A few months from now, it’ll be staged in London, but he doesn’t anticipate a prolific international life for it. “I think it’s a limitation that it is kind of so clearly an American play.”

All the same, it is one of the most produced plays within the country. In 2016, in a historical final, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA championship thanks to James’ famed block. Is Joseph at all concerned that his Bay Area audience most likely comprises Warriors fans who’re still salty about that blip in the sporting matrix?

“Oh, not at all,” he said. “The fans of the Warriors are much like the 2016 Warriors — their bark was worse than their bite.”

‘King James’ runs through Nov. 3 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts in Mountain View. “>Details here.

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