Leave it to the skewed sensibilities of downtown darling Richard Maxwell to fashion a play around amateur boxing—a sport that is equated with agility and speed and still bless it with his trademark deadpan dialogue. In his latest effort, Maxwell turns his attentions to two brothers, seemingly products of the street, Jo-Jo (Gary Wilmes) and Freddie (Robert Torres), who are prepping for a small-time fight. Freddie is a lackadaisical innocent who has half-hearted dreams of college, and Jo-Jo is a working-class ex-fighter who, with a suit-wearing man known only as Promoter (Christopher Sullivan), attempts to turn this small venture into a big one. As always, Maxwell's dialogue is part mocking, part observant, suggesting his eavesdropping of actual conversations (which he has done in the past). Some of it is hilarious, such as Freddie's girlfriend (Gladys Perez) declaring her feelings after a botched engagement offer. (His response to her lengthy, heartfelt plea: "What happened?"). Other passages seem designed to comment on boxing clichés, such as the 11th-hour entrance of the boys' father (Benjamin Tereda), who speaks in plain, average-speed words unlike the others, and acts as a dreamlike sage for young Freddie, almost like Burgess Meredith did in "Rocky" (though Sly Stallone never told Meredith to "shut the fuck up.") While never reaching the heights of his P.S. 122 play Showy Lady Slipper of last season, Maxwell still finds a delicate balance in this production, both as writer and director. His work always has its heart in the right place, and despite its quizzical design, never bores or becomes repetitive. Boxing 2000 takes a little too much time to heat up, and to me at least, Maxwell's female performers always seem more at home delivering his quips than the men (with the exception of Jim Fletcher, a holdover from other Maxwell work, who is screamingly funny here). Since Boxing features virtually all men, the imbalance is a slight detriment but not a damaging one by any means, especially with so much possibility there. And the touches added to the final scene are quietly indelible, such as Freddie's matching garage uniform that resembles Jo-Jo's. Thus, with one costume change, Maxwell suggests a vital undercurrent most playwrights would have used an overheated monologue to get across.
