"Sugar Ray" Dinner Theatre at New Harlem Besame Restaurant

When you think of the words, “Sugar Ray,” there are different evocations for different people. Some may wax poetic to the 90’s alterative rock band; some may only consider Sugar Ray Leonard as the very best Sugar Ray. But right here, in Harlem, there is another Sugar Ray who belonged to an earlier time who is no less prolific. Sugar Ray Robinson, by many even to this day considered the greatest boxer of all time, found his fame and laid his roots down in Harlem. The New Harlem Besame Restaurant lays claim to a great relic of that history and through the month of March, Besame is playing host to a dinner theatre production of Laurence Holder’s one man “Sugar Ray.” Starring Reginald L. Wilson and under the direction of Woodie King Jr. this play and dinner production runs Sunday through Tuesday until March 28.

My first impressions of the "Sugar Ray" show at Besame were not favorable or not favorable for those who hope to begin an event on time. The shows starting time was listed as 7pm. However 7pm came and went and we weren't even allowed in the theatre. I appreciate there is an intangible dynamic in the solo dinner theatre production scheme but it really could have only been one of so many things. When folks come to a show at 7pm and the running time is listed as 75 minutes, there is a certain expectation of how the night will go. All that planning though goes out the window if you never start the play. Most of the crowd seemed amiable and happy to have an evening out. I just want future guests of this space to perhaps plan accordingly.

Early audiences at New Harlem Besame production of "Sugar Ray"

One thing about this space is that the show was played to a row of four rows of tables and virtually none of them were proper “facing” the black box stage. There were directly facing seats along the perimeter and in the back but if you were like most of the audience you had to pivot in your chair to see the action. If the restaurant would have spread out the tables in a staggered fashion, that may have led to a less awkward layout.

I don’t mean to belabor the pre-show optics of this space but we were left sitting for well near an hour. The production staff was in back of where I was sitting and I asked the board op what's up with the massive delay? She confided, "It was something outside of their control." Having a rich history in the theatre I appreciate that this could mean any variety of things from the fact that perhaps the star of the show has fallen ill to a dignitary guest is holding the curtain to even someone died, as happened one day when I was working at The St James Theatre’s original staging of “The Producers” with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in 2001/2002.

So we waited. 

And waited. 

And waited a bit more.

Eventually the show was ready to get going and a nice woman who was a partner with The New Harlem Besame Restaurant took the stage and apologized for the fluid nature of the live dinner theatre spectacle. She relayed that the very spot we were sitting was where Sugar Ray Robinson Enterprises once stood. She said that this very building had held a Sugar Ray Robinson affiliated dry cleaner, barbershop, and even a lingerie boutique.

Just at the stroke of a quarter till eight the evening got underway. Mr. Wilson as Sugar Ray Robinson appeared none the worse for wear in a stylish looking pink/purple suit and dove right into the story. Unfortunately for many of us unfamiliar with mid-20^th Century boxing in America, the barrage of obscure names he shot out at us didn’t really register.

Wilson, as Robinson, told the story of how he got started boxing in a priest’s illegal basement boxing ring, how his mother was dreadfully against the prospect of his going into boxing, and how he ascended the ranks. Wilson was a colorful actor who hit arpeggios and kept up a nervous energy throughout the bulk of the evening. When describing Robinson’s first fight his pitch hit a slow crescendo. At the completion of this tale he broke off and admitted to his audience the feeling was something "You don't know. Only a boxer can know."

Wilson is a talented performer and kept the audience rapt up in this otherwise confusing story. However my guest for the evening, who has taken boxing lessons, was take aback by his shadowboxing which he did multiple times this night. "Turn your wrists" she kept mumbling. 

Robinson was a colorful soul as well. As the evening progressed, he told of how he had bought homes for his mother, given $500 to his till that point absent father, and even had something as seemingly gaudy as a Flamingo Cadillac. Research on Robinson before the show alluded to the fact that he may have been one of the first fighters to roll with an “entourage” although from the sounds of the story at Besame, Robinson seemed a conflicted and insecure figure.

“Money was real reason you were s boxer,” was recurring theme throughout the show. Robinson saw himself as a “Gladiator” and “Unstoppable.” Robinson retired once, took to the dancing and entertainment circuit (as his sister and he took ballroom classes in his youth), tried to scheme to make that paper, and then reemerged to the boxing world some time later.

Reginald L. Wilson is the entertainer as Sugar Ray Robinson.

The storytelling in this play was interesting and engaging but when the playwright diverts off into sexual conquests, racial strife, religion, and other platitudes the story became preachy and pedantic.

“When God sends you a message you have got to hear it!"

“When God gives you a gift you need to use it!”

“God always has a message for you and he packages it in interesting ways!”

I expected Wilson to ask, “Can I get an Amen brothers and sisters?” but he didn’t have to. Many in the audience fell right into this cadence and began unprompted snapping their fingers and warmly agreeing with him.

The real pinnacle of this evening was the story of Robinsons tutelage of a young Cassius Clay, the professional boxer who would later go on to become Muhammad Ali. Wilson tries to convince us of Robinson’s straight and narrow path for the young boxer and that may have been true. As the boxer aged he seemed almost regretful at the things he had and hadn't done. 

Capitulation is realized when he recounts of a conversation with Ali on the phone. Ali had gotten a draft card and declared he’s going to dodge the draft. Without thinking Robinson admits that any effort to dupe the government is futile, “because when you get out of jail you'll be too old to fight like me!”

However for all of Robinson’s bravado and living the pimp lifestyle, eventually Father Time and Gravity catch up with you. This was a story of love, family, comeuppance from nothing, bounty, and eventual decline. When I walked away from the Besame dinner theater production of “Sugar Ray” I felt that the story was a little bit meandering. But maybe that’s not the point. Astute audiences will be able to glean a cogent picture of this man, who he was, and what his legacy remains today.