Pulling No Punches : A Boxer’s Battle With His Sexuality Is at the Heart of ‘Blade to the Heat’

“Blade to the Heat,” Oliver Mayer’s drama about forbidden homosexuality and the boxing world in the late 1950s, culminates in a riveting bout in which the power of the male body collides with the mess of conflicted emotions that power provokes. In a scene of searing theatricality, staged by director Ron Link and choreographed by Michael Olajide Jr., a defeated middleweight champ named Decima has a rematch with the new champ, a shy Mexican who has been publicly labeled a “maricon,” a derogatory term for homosexuals. In the heat and sexually charged fury of the fight, Decima kisses his rival full on the lips, ostensibly to humiliate him. But the act is incendiary in a way that Decima cannot foresee or control.

“Blade to the Heat” lays out its themes heavily and sometimes clumsily. But they are powerful themes and they challenge a director and designers to create the overwhelmingly physical universe in which they are played out. In the production at the Mark Taper Forum, Anne Militello (lights) and Yael Pardess (sets) have risen to the occasion. The set is a grimy Los Angeles gym, old but sturdy. For each of the play’s three bouts, a ring of ropes descends from above to crown a mat on the floor and create a realistic fighting arena. Sound designer Jon Gottlieb provides the roar of the crowd; three percussionists (East L.A. Taiko) on scaffolding above the action provide the pounding, rhythmic soundtrack. “Blade” is a melange of music, percussion, dance and boxing that, at its best, pulses with danger and sexuality.

Link has created a more external or showy drama than George C. Wolfe did with his intense and focused staging at New York’s Public Theater two years ago. Here, the acting is, across the board, declamatory, with mixed results.

Wilfred Vinal (Raymond Cruz) is the villainous character who puts the blade to heat, igniting the final and deadly drama. Vinal is a walking human disaster, viciousness incarnate. He wants to wedge himself in the competition between the charismatic Decima (Dominic Hoffman) and the new champ, Pedro Quinn (Ray Oriel). He taunts Quinn, both publicly and, most devastatingly, privately, just before the fateful rematch. He alone understands what can happen if one makes text out of the ever-constant subtext of sexuality among men in the ring.

Quinn is either too stupid or too innocent (or both) to hide his homosexual leanings, apparently still unconsummated. Oriel looks good as the boxer but his performance is lackluster. He never fills in this blank slate of humanity, a man whose closest relationship has been with his dog.

Link doesn’t help either. In a pivotal love scene between Quinn and a lounge singer named Garnet (Hassan El-Amin), the men sink to the floor after a long tender embrace. Then Quinn mysteriously freaks out. We need to know what has scared Quinn and why he starts to punch his lover. Garnet is always exhorting Quinn to “be who you are” but we never find out who that is.

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Cruz underlines the already cartoony Vinal by giving him a bizarre delivery, shouting one minute, then careening to a weird whisper. He gets some laughs, but at the expense of his character’s scariness. Hoffman is refreshingly natural as Decima, a low-key comedian with a deadpan that shows he both understands and has no idea how to react to his hot-blooded, quick-witted girlfriend Sarita (the appealing Justina Machado) or his trouble-making trainer Alacran (Sal Lopez).

Both Alacran and Quinn’s trainer Jack (Ellis E. Williams) are visually interesting; they look like bit players from Preston Sturges, and the ref (Gerrit Graham) seems to have stepped out of a George Bellows painting. But their scenes seem like filler.

As Garnet, the professional Jackie Wilson impersonator who longs to sing in his own style, El-Amin has a creamy voice and all the right moves. But he can’t spark the scenes with his inarticulate love interest Quinn, which are slack and boring.

El-Amin scores in one solo scene though, with the help of lighting designer Militello, who has a lot of fun throughout with the play’s heightened theatricality and themes. Garnet is performing, forgoing his Wilson impersonation to try out his own voice and his own material. But he gets ruthlessly booed and seems to want to shrink into himself. Militello floods him with a white light that drains him not only of his color but of his very personality as well.

The first two bouts in the play seem too gentle as staged by Olajide, who took a firmer hand in the New York production. But they pave the way for the third fight, which comes alive with sweat and danger. Here we get the clinches, the punches, the exhaustion of the fighters in the final round when they can barely lift themselves from their stools, but yet can still propel themselves toward each other with the mysterious logic of the ring and of human cruelty. “Blade” may be unsubtle, but what it has to say about the power of sexuality remains as combustible and mysterious as ever.

* “Blade to the Heat,” Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends May 5. $28-$35.50. (213) 365-3500, (714) 740-2000, TDD (213) 680-4017. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

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Raymond Cruz: Vinal

Hassan El-Amin: Garnet

Gerrit Graham: Reporter, announcer, referee

Dominic Hoffman: Mantequilla Decima

Sal Lopez: Alacran

Justina Machado: Sarita

Ray Oriel: Pedro Quinn

Ellis E. Williams: Jack

Ensemble: Wayne Brady, Cesar Hernandez, Maceo Hernandez, Michael Hernandez, Zilah Hill, Alfredo Ortiz, William Stephen Taylor, George Villas

A Center Theatre Group production. By Oliver Mayer. Directed by Ron Link. Sets Yael Pardess. Costumes Candice Cain. Lights Anne Militello. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Original Musical accompaniment East L.A. Taiko. Fight choreography Michael Olajide Jr. Hair and wigs Carol F. Doran. Production stage manager James T. McDermott.