Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...There were a few minor flubbed lines Monday night, leading me to think that "The Royale" will be better yet in a week or so. And I've been mulling in my mind for the last 12 hours whether Ramirez shortchanges the historical import of his story - although I think, on balance, that the story of a fight that changed America is not the story he wants to tell. He's more interested in his fighter's relationship with his trainer (Edwin Lee Gibson) and the boxer's terrified sister (played by Mildred Langford) and of how seismic rumbles come from people who want personal things - in Jay's case, he wants to fight the boxer he wants to fight and see himself on Page One, not Page Five. From that, America had an abbreviated Civil War, inside a boxing ring."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...An American Theater Company production, the play’s impact is heightened by the precision-tooled direction of Jaime Castaneda who has ideally orchestrated the author’s stirring poetry and rhythmic beats, and assembled one of those casts where you are prompted to proclaim: Only in Chicago."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"... Director Jamie Castañeda’s uncompromising cast render most every moment haunting, harrowing, and human. While Ramirez’s thematically repetitive and conceptually muddled finale shortchanges everything that precedes it, the lead-up is thrilling."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...It’s a story whose moral, you might say, is that your actions are your own but their repercussions can affect others. And that great hopes, black or white, can have their own costs. What Jay does with that, at this play’s gut-punch of a climax, could have you holding your breath to the end of the count."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Loosely based on Jack Johnson's being the first African-American to defeat a white man for the professional heavy-weight championship, playwright Marco Ramirez has penned a strong 75 minute profile of the traits that fuel a determined Jay (Jerod Haynes) to focus on being the heavy-weight boxing champion of the world. We see how much Jay is seeking glory and personal prestige more than money."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Instead, he evokes both a ruthless opportunism, and even hints of a superficial entrepreneurial charm. Ultimately, he sees the world for what it is and decides to make use of it: probably a little too shrewd to be a racist himself but more than willing to use racism and Jay to turn a profit. Max’s costume (Christine Pascual): a pin stripe suit (gaudy relative to the functional and conservative garb of the other characters), and the plays intense and forceful blocking (director Jaime Castañeda), set against an extremely minimalist set and counterintuitively bright lighting by Brian Sidney Brembridge help bring all these interpersonal tensions out."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...Director Jaime Castañeda has taken Ramirez's script and cooked up a seventy-five-minute ball of fire whose flames never wane. The choice to use Jeffery Freelon and Eric Gerard for the rhythmic effects we hear throughout the story in place of actual fight scenes is both inventive and economical."
