‘Requiem’ Revisited at Gem Theatre

It is an old axiom in the writing trade that losers make better stories than winners--which more or less explains why prizefighters who go down for the count in the ring often come out as heroically tragic figures on stage and in the movies.

From “Golden Boy” to “Raging Bull,” victory and defeat have been measured by more than win-loss records. In the literature of boxing, the ultimate garland of personal honor is not bestowed by the referee. And prize-fight dramas, unlike the reality of the ring, are replete with moral precepts peculiar to the imagination.

The battered Goliath who is strung along, then betrayed, by his crooked managers in “The Harder They Fall” gains our pity. The cold-blooded worldbeater who casts aside friends, family and lovers on his way to the title in “Champion” earns our scorn. The burned-out boxer who won’t quit and won’t be corrupted in “The Set-Up” wins our admiration.

In staging Rod Serling’s “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” which opened over the weekend at the Gem Theatre in Garden Grove, director Thomas F. Bradac has underscored what he calls “the metaphor of the ring” because the protagonist, a has-been fighter called Harlan (Mountain) McClintock, faces his biggest battle outside the ropes.

“For me, the play is all about man against society,” Bradac says. “Mountain has lived on the seamy side of life from the beginning. The background given in the script indicates that he was ranked No. 5 at one time. He could have been a contender. But he has never been in the mainstream. Now he is washed up, and he has to prostitute himself to make a living.”

Written as a 90-minute teleplay for CBS’s “Playhouse 90,” the widely admired dramatic anthology of TV’s Golden Age, “Requiem” was first shown in a live broadcast on Oct. 11, 1956. It starred Jack Palance as McClintock and Keenan Wynn as his manager, Maish. A critical success, the teleplay picked up half a dozen Emmys--including two for Serling and Palance--and a slew of other awards.

Stylistically, “Requiem” shares a similarity of texture with other teleplays of the period (notably those by Paddy Chayefsky) and, in terms of subject matter, evokes comparison with other pictures of the era for its exposure of corruption in the fight game. A boxer’s cruel degradation, which is at the heart of “Requiem,” for instance, echoes the central motif of “The Harder They Fall.” (That movie, Humphrey Bogart’s last, came out 6 months earlier than “Requiem.”)

Serling subsequently adapted his teleplay as a feature film. It was released under the same title in 1962 with Anthony Quinn as the fighter, Jackie Gleason as his manager and Mickey Rooney as his corner man. After Serling’s death in 1975, his widow found still another “Requiem” script. This one had been expanded for the stage and revised to incorporate a more optimistic ending than the previous versions.

And so, in 1985, “Requiem for a Heavyweight” was mounted on Broadway by director Arvin Brown after playing to standing-room audiences at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn., where it starred John Lithgow as Mountain McClintock and Richard Dreyfuss as Maish. On Broadway, where George Segal replaced Dreyfuss, the play bombed because, according to a Long Wharf insider, the producers didn’t have the promotion budget to overcome a devastating review in the New York Times.

“I saw the original on TV, and it stuck with me ever since,” says Bradac, who was turned down twice for the rights to the stage version before the current production. “I’ve wanted to do it for a long time. It’s a classic piece of theater.”

Although the cast had the option of watching tapes of both the original “Requiem” teleplay and the movie, Bradac purposely avoided seeing them again. Nor has he seen the Broadway version, although he believes that his staging differs significantly.

“From the production notes in the New York script, it looks like they used realistic sets on platforms and slid them in and out,” the director said. “They created a monument. I think it’s really an intimate piece. In the Gem you’d want to abstract it anyway. So I use the ring as a metaphor for his life. It is a real ring and at the same time the larger arena where his life struggle takes place.”

With the ring present on stage at all times as a unifying image, Bradac has chosen to announce the scene changes with a fight bell. Bradac went for as much realism as possible in terms of casting. He hired a real athlete, Jim Boeke, to play Mountain McClintock. Last seen two seasons ago at the Gem in “Devour the Snow,” Boeke is a former professional football player (with the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys). His 6-foot-6, 250-pound frame is suitably imposing.

“The main reason I chose Jim,” says Bradac, “was his great empathy with the character and (of) how demeaning it would be to go from boxing to wrestling matches as Mountain’s manager has arranged for him. He understands what that would do to the dignity of a legitimate athlete.”

Rounding out the cast in the lead roles are Daniel Bryan Cartmell as Maish, Ree Johnson as Army, the corner man, and Marianne Ludwig as Grace, the woman with whom Mountain falls in love.

Precisely because of the romanticized love interest, Bradac believes that the play will appeal to women despite its basically masculine subject matter. “Grace and Mountain share a beauty-and-the beast relationship,” he notes. “I think women will be intrigued by that.”

The Grove Theatre Company production of “Requiem for a Heavyweight” runs through April 15 at the Gem Theatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. (714) 636-7213.