[For the remainder of the year, my San Jose and Peninsula theater reviews will be posted on Talkin’ Broadway with only introductions to those reviews on this site]

Please continue to https://talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/sanjose/sj261.html for full review.

Sports have taken on outsized influence in American life.  Cities vie for teams with uncommonly large subsidies and other concessions to franchise owners.  Games are played in vastly expensive palatial arenas.  Media coverage of contests and sports talk shows reign in popularity.   Players earn princely sums.  Betting not just on game outcomes but even on individual plays indicates the depth of sports addiction and some viewers’ need for constant stimulation.  Analytics are increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous.  Fanatics’ zeal extends beyond the real world to dedicating more of their lives to fantasy sports leagues.

Needless to say, alliances and friendships build around shared love of teams or individual players and little more.  A generally positive byproduct is that hometown team loyalty also promotes a sense of community patriotism, though this can turn to collective depression when a team does poorly or move away.

Rajiv Joseph explores the theme and consequences of sports obsession in his brilliant King James, a two-handed dramedy defined by the era of Lebron James’ two stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team from 2004 to 2016.  Without giving anything away except documented history, it covers the time from Lebron’s rookie year through the Cav’s unlikely championship, with a brief mention of his two championships with Miami in between.

King James, written by Rajiv Joseph is produced by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and plays at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA through November 3, 2024.