King James brings basketball — and bromance — to Theatre Aquarius
iPhoto caption: King James production still by Dahlia Katz.
The creative powerhouses at Theatre Aquarius and Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) are gettin’ their heads in the game.
This season, both theatres are partnering to present the Canadian premiere of King James, written by American playwright Rajiv Joseph and directed by ATP artistic director Haysam Kadri. The play traces the first 12 years of “King” LeBron James’ NBA career, and follows two basketball enthusiasts bonded by fandom.
“We’re having a great time in the room,” shared Kadri in an interview with Intermission. “There’s a lot of details; it’s concentrated work.” While King James highlights the mythic power forward’s reign over Cleveland and beyond, Kadri says the magic of Joseph’s play comes from its ability to connect with audiences regardless of their familiarity with basketball.
That said, the play is sure to resonate with sports enthusiasts.
“I’m a huge sports fan,” said Kadri, “and one of those sports is basketball. I’m one of those guys who’s in theatre, but has a major passion for sports, so this play speaks to me on a number of levels.”
In recent decades, plenty of North American playwrights have turned to sports to create compelling works of theatre; both sports and performing arts hinge upon the presence of a live audience, so it’s no shock that there can exist a successful crossover between theatremaking and athletics. Works such as Mark Crawford’s The New Canadian Curling Club, Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, and August Wilson’s Fences place sports like soccer, baseball, and, yes, curling, in starring roles, and yet none of those scripts demand in-depth knowledge of game rules or scoring conventions in order to enjoy the story at the heart of each piece.
“Sports and theatre share a lot in terms of relationships, human connections,” said Kadri. “In King James, it’s interesting to see the dynamic between our two characters, and how their relationship develops throughout the play. LeBron James is a metaphor, but he’s also such a real presence in these characters’ lives.” Kadri added that a recent Alberta Theatre Projects production, The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon, brought a huge community of curling fans to the theatre, which gave Kadri the opportunity to see firsthand just how much theatre and sports could inform each other.
“Sports and theatre both hold extraordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances,” he continued. “That’s what my favourite type of theatre is: Characters placed in such interesting circumstances, and seeing how they navigate the world.”
It’s safe to say four-time NBA champ James is an extraordinary figure (at age 39, he remains one of the best players in the world, and recently was a key piece of Team USA’s gold medal win in Paris), and Kadri’s looking forward to welcoming fans into the theatre to spot “Easter eggs” in Joseph’s script.
“There’s lots of little things fans will identify with,” he said. “If you’re a fan or fanatic, you’ll understand the emotion. You understand the charged energy that goes into being a sports fan, and the play delves into the complexities of male dynamics and friendships, and how emotions are filtered through external interests like sports.
“The basketball part of this play serves as a great backdrop,” he continued, “but it’s really about these two characters, Sean and Matt, as they navigate their lives and friendships as they get older. The play explores the fandom piece and how being a fan can be a source of joy, but also an absolute. And I know anybody in Toronto will absorb that frustration and heartache, as well.” (Sorry, Raptors fans.)
The partnership between Theatre Aquarius and Alberta Theatre Projects came to be during the early years of the pandemic, when Kadri was serving as the Calgary-based company’s interim artistic director. A chance phone meeting with Mary Francis Moore, artistic director of Theatre Aquarius, kicked off a sizzling collaboration between the two companies.
“We got on like a house on fire,” said Kadri. “And we shared all these interests. That was one of those conversations that could have gone on for hours,” he recalled, laughing.
“We got to talking about the state of our industry, and of course, we were facing similar challenges. But we got to talking about this play King James, which was produced at Steppenwolf in Chicago in 2022. And it turned out that Mary Francis is a huge, huge basketball fan.”
The pieces soon fell into place for this season’s “bicoastal” production of King James. “She fell in love with it. I fell in love with it. It fits perfectly into the ATP world, and it’s going to fit perfectly in the Aquarius season as well,” said Kadri.
“You don’t have to be a basketball fan to understand or relate to this play; ultimately it’s about human connection,” he added, sharing he hopes to see a “strong intersection” of audiences young and old, sports-obsessed and not.
“This play is about the dynamics of human connection, and grapples with questions of human connection and loyalty and identity, with an underpinning of race. These are fascinating topics that permeate plays often, but King James offers such an interesting template for that storytelling. The play has such layers.”
King James runs at Theatre Aquarius from September 25 until October 12. Tickets are available here.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.
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