Philadelphia Inquirer
Broadway review: 'Magic/Bird'
April 11, 2012
By Howard Shapiro, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
In the middle of Magic/Bird, the smooth and warm new play about a friendship that blooms from the deep roots of rivalry, playwright Eric Simonson writes a deft pivoting scene. Two young guys, both basketball rivals of worldwide renown, are forced to lunch together by one of their moms.
You look on to see what happens when these two very different people - opposites, really, in every way except their brilliance on the basketball - have no option but to relate. Friendship, just a glimmer of it, begins to be defined.
It's a lovely scene about human nature, and the last place I expected to find it was a play about the career-long rivalries between basketball greats Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. But Simonson proved a few seasons back with his play about another sports legend, coach Vince Lombardi, that the theme of sports competition can cement the foundation for some very good theater.
In Magic/Bird, which opened Wednesday night on Broadway, he creates just that from the real story of two men at the same high level of their game, who respected each other for being so talented and hated each other for the same reason.
Simonson had help from the facts. Larry Bird (three times an NBA champion and most valuable player, 12 times an all-star for the Boston Celtics) and Earvin "Magic" Johnson (five times an NBA national champion, three times a most valuable player and 12 times and all-star for the Los Angeles Lakers) first met on the court at an NCAA championship, then constantly throughout their professional careers in one of the great personal - and team - rivalries in sport. By the time they helped lead America's "dream team" to Olympic gold in 1992, both had retired from professional basketball and both had learned, somehow, how to be friends.
Not that Johnson - winningly played with a perfect ebullience by Kevin Daniels - didn't want to be more than just civil. But Bird, a studiously aloof Tug Coker in a characterization that makesfor a notable Broadway debut, was far from the glad-handing type. I sat in the theater wondering how the two real-life men reacted to their theatrical selves, who are said to be very close to them in actuality.
Daniels and Coker are supported by a team of four actors who make Magic/Bird one of the better examples of ensemble acting on Broadway so far this season. Peter Scolari plays the owners of both teams and other roles; Deirdre O'Connell takes four very different female parts; Francois Battiste and Robert Manning Jr. perform a total of 10 roles - Battiste's Bryant Gumbel imitation is especially a winner, but each of the different roles the four actors play is sharply defined and delivered.
Jeff Sugg is the media designer, whose projections from real games and press conferences (the show begins with Johnson's shocking retirement announcement in 1991 that he was HIV-positive) and smart basketball-court graphics are integral to Magic/Bird and give it a sports-active feel. Thomas Kail's direction does the rest.
It's easy to say that Magic/Bird is a celebration of good old American competition and sports celebrity - that's obvious. But the show goes deeper, examining what makes friendship work, in spite of the competition and the odds. Long after the box scores are printed and the stats are tabulated, that's thepart that was hardest to achieve, but worth it.
Gregory Jones
