| The Square Ring | |
| Setting: | London |
| Premiere: | October 1952 |
| Orig Lang: | English |
| Genre: | boxing drama |
The Square Ring is a 1952 play by Ralph Peterson.[1] [2]
The story of several boxers who are fighting on the one night. They include Docker Starkie, a boxer making a comeback.
Peterson wrote an Australian radio play about boxing, Come Out Fighting which aired in 1950.[3]
Peterson moved to London in 1951 and wrote a stage version, The Square Ring, over a three-month period. He sent the play to Anthony Quayle, whom he had met in Sydney when Quayle was touring with the Stratford Players (Quayle had appeared in a radio play written by Peterson about Aboriginal issues, "The Problem of Johnny Flourcake").[4] Quayle was going to put it on himself but then accepted another theatrical tour of Australia so he passed it to H. M. Tennents, the London theatre agency, who agreed to produce it.
After several weeks of rehearsal, the play premiered in Brighton in September 1952 with a mostly male cast but one female, the wife of the central character. Peterson said "the play never seemed to jell. It got wacky and the girl seemed to be distracting attention from the main story." So he made it an all male story. He also changed it by "I've done away with the normal compression of time. The running time of the play is exactly the period it would take a boxer to arrive in his dressing-room, to wait for his bout, and to complete his fight. It goes on without a break."[5]
Peterson said "The play's only philosophy is: What makes men fight? The answer is simply — money."
The play debuted in London in October 1952 and was acclaimed.[6] [7] It was produced in Melbourne in 1953 at Frank Thring's Arrow Theatre with Thring in the cast.[8] The play received some criticism because of its language[9] but was such a success that the production was transferred to the much larger Princess Theatre.[10]
Joe Louis expressed interest in appearing in a production.[11]
The play was the basis of The Square Ring produced at Ealing Studios.
Peterson adapted the play into a novel which was published in 1954.
See The Square Ring (1959 TV play).
See 1960 Australian TV adaptation
The play was adapted for radio in 1965.