“The Royale” at City Theatre

The Pittsburgh Tatler: My last post described Kristoffer Diaz’s 2010 play The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity as one of the smartest and most insightful plays about race in the US that I’d seen. Marco Ramirez’s 2013 play The Royale – which, perhaps not coincidentally, also sets its action among professional fighters – earns the same distinction. Readers, you know I’m not in the business of ranking, so don’t even ask; there’s plenty of room in the category, and in our current political climate, plays like these, that shine a light on the stubborn persistence of racism and xenophobia, are as urgently essential as ever.