Stage Struck

LAST WEEK I asked an actor to throw a punch at me. Aonghus Óg McAnally, who was rehearsing Gavin Kostick's one-man boxing drama Fight Night, was polite enough to aim away from my face.

The secret to throwing a punch, he said, was torque. As his body twisted from its core, his fist extended into a right hook that looked like it could do some damage. It seemed like more than an act.

McAnally is not a fighter – he just plays one onstage. But he's hardly the first actor to look at home in the ring. Recently, Billy Roche's play Lay Me Down Softly, in a touring production, turned its stage into a boxing ring, where contenders strutted through their paces and stayed true to type: the Former Star, the Preening Champ, the Comeback Kid, the Gnarly Coach. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Theatre brought its Beautiful Burnout to New York, another boxing drama where stock characters jump ropes and trade belts.

“They are not acting this play,” wrote one critic of the sweaty training scenes and brutal choreography of their bouts. “They are living it.” You might say the same about every performer in a fictitious ring: somewhere between method acting and professional metaphor, the boxing drama fits them like a glove.

Actors and fighters prepare at length for their performances, psyche themselves up or out, and finally confront their opponents with no certainty as to the outcome. It might sound like a fanciful comparison for a comparatively gentle profession, the same way that physically unimposing comedians either “kill” their audience or “die” onstage. After all, if an actor isn’t up to scratch, only the show will fall flat.

But it's more than coincidence that some of the most memorable roles have been fighters. Think of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront("I coulda been a contender"), Robert De Niro in Raging Bull("Give me a stage where this bull here can rage") or Sylvester Stallone in Rocky I-VI ("Adriaaaaaaann!"). The power of vulnerability and the resilience of invincibility may as well be in the professional performer's job description, and the demands of a boxing drama exploit it utterly.

Training with a professional coach for six days a week over three months in preparation for a fight that never happens, Aonghus Óg McAnally has made an extraordinary transformation: a capable performer who you might have once overlooked now has the presence, confidence and character of a champion – a discipline that is likely to stand to him until Gavin Kostick writes Fight Night II: The Sumo Years.

For the moment, though, it’s a performance that can’t be faked: McAnally knows his left hook from his right jab, sweats off three pounds during every show and – following a few sparring sessions – is considering a boxing career.

Perhaps we will interpret that punishing offstage endeavour as a stirring metaphor for the life of an actor? After all, everybody knows that a fighter has to stand for something.