THE STORY: As he slips into dementia, Emile Griffith tries to make sense of his life’s journey from a Caribbean émigré who only wanted to sing and play baseball to becoming the six-time world-champion boxer, and the single event that overshadowed his entire life. On national television, in the twelfth round of a championship fight, taunted for his sexuality, Emile pummeled his opponent into a coma from which the man never recovered. A true story driven by tragedy becomes a triumphant tale of forgiveness and redemption.
“A drama of guilt and forgiveness that unfolds like a duet between the present and the past, Man in the Ring persuasively frames the boxing ring—and a boxer’s life—as a moral and existential battleground where the stakes could not be higher.” —The Boston Globe.
“…an exceptionally artful piece of theater.” —Chicago Tribune.
“[Cristofer] has channeled that mix of biography, fate and forgiveness into this metaphorical dust-up between darkness and light, outward effervescence and interior pain, the macho mid-20th century world of pugilism and the love that dared not speak its name.” —WBUR, Boston Public Radio.
