Boxers on Broadway
Say it ain't so: Spike Lee to direct Mike Tyson in one-man show on Broadway
On the same day we learned there's a musical cheerleading version of Bring It On coming to Broadway, The Today Show dropped another bomb that is almost too much for our brains to fathom.
Spike Lee is directing a one-man show starring Mike Tyson telling Mike Tyson's story about being Mike Tyson.
Take a second and let that all sink in.
The Spike Lee, the filmmaking genius behind the renaissance of black film in the 90s, is making his Broadway directorial debut with Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth, a one-man show from the face-tattooed, squeaky-voiced ex-convict who has been making wincingly painful cameos in films like The Hangover. Now we're going to get to see him — and only him — on stage for 90 minutes at a time, telling us how hard life has been for him.
"It takes courage to get into the ring, but it takes courage to get onto the stage," Lee said in all seriousness about the former heavyweight boxing champion, in a press conference Monday. (Guaranteed, actors across the globe are simultaneously rolling their eyes and considering taking up boxing.)
The show, which will only be performed six times in July and August, will document Tyson's difficult childhood, his turn to athletics and drugs to cope, his legal problems after being accused multiple times of rape, and his eventual redemption through prison and religion.
Or as Tyson outlines it: "I'm just telling you who I am and where I'm from and how this happened and how I lose all this damn money and how I had all these children and how I go to prison, and, you know, you know what happened guys, right?"
It's pretty easy to criticize and ridicule and hate Tyson for his rather public and well-documented mistakes. The question is whether or not hearing his side of the story will change anyone's minds or make anyone empathize with his choices.
All we know is that someone had better do the writing for him and get him some diction classes immediately. Because an autobiographical stage show told by a crying heavyweight man-baby justifying his addiction to pretty girls just sounds like an experiment in torture.
Either that, or the best performance art money can buy. Maybe Lee really is a genius.