Photo credit: Craig Schwartz Photography
Jonas Schwartz – Theatermania
Power is an illusion in Will Power’s startling play Fetch Clay, Make Man, now running at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles. All the characters believe they have control of their destinies, but each is desperate to break free from someone’s influence — even Muhammad Ali, marvelously played by Ray Fisher. Under Debbie Allen’s taut direction, Fetch Clay, Make Man makes us feel like these characters are in a boxing ring battling for their dignity. Read more…
Terry Morgan – ArtsBeat LA
The subject of unlikely friendships is always intriguing (however will this cat and dog get along?), and none seems more unlikely than the friendship between boxing legend Muhammad Ali and early black movie star Stepin Fetchit. In the early 1960s, Ali was a rising talent and a famous convert to the Nation of Islam whereas Fetchit (his real name was Lincoln Perry) was in decline due to his earlier film performances being decried as racist caricature and was also a lifelong Catholic. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
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. Read more…
Katie Buenneke – Theater Digest
Fetch Clay, Make Man at the Kirk Douglas [LA]. What a phenomenally performed play! The play (written by Will Power), which outlines the relationship between boxer Muhammad Ali (Ray Fisher) and vaudeville and movie star Stepin Fetchit (Edwin Lee Gibson), can be dense and dry at times, and requires more contextual knowledge of 1960s U.S. history than I have. Read more…
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage
CTG’s other, lesser-known summer production is “Fetch Clay, Make Man,” which closes Sunday at Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. Will Power’s 2010 play, in its local premiere, explores an acquaintance between Muhammad Ali, at the peak of his pugilistic power in 1965, and Stepin Fetchit, the shuffling Hollywood comedian who was long past his greatest fame, decades earlier, when he was touted as the “Laziest Man in the World.” In 1965, Ali had recently shed his previous name “Cassius Clay” and joined the Nation of Islam. Read more…