Jordan Lane Shappell and Kenny Scott Photo by Kevin Berne

Needless to say, alliances and friendships build around shared love for a team 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 the team does poorly or moves 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 2003 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.

Though the veneer is predominately about basketball, attention to other details and a little scratching beneath the surface reveals a richly multi-layered social commentary that director Giovanna Sardelli and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley extract with consummate skill.

Except for dedication to the Cavs, Matt and Shawn are chalk and cheese, yet they become best friends. Matt's personality tends toward gloom, always feeling that he's right and that everything could or should be better. He hates his parents and their reupholstering and tchotchkes shop, Armando's. He's pleased to work anywhere away from the business and away from his parents carping and lack of supportiveness.

Conversely, Shawn radiates charm and affability. Though he and Matt went to different high schools, they come from the same part of Cleveland. Shawn had even long known and loved the odds and ends at Armando's. He would become close to Matt's parents over time to the extent that Shawn even frayed his friendship with Matt by sharing important information with Matt's mother before notifying him.

Much of the humor in the play comes from the young men sharing the revelry of team spirit and carrying out their own fantasies playing one-on-one with wadded paper as a ball and a trash can as the hoop. But more important are revelations about characteristics of sports fans that extend to overall personality profiles. Upcoming games produce anxiety and expectation. Fervor for teams parallels religious experience bordering on fanaticism (from which the term fan is derived). Some fans are drawn by the spectacle while others celebrate the celebrities. Some follow through-thick-and-thin, while others are bandwagon supporters. Finally, many members of the same community wonder why anyone should care about such trivialities.

But the critical incidents concern Lebron leaving the Cavaliers for bigger money and a better championship opportunity followed by his returning home to northeast Ohio and hoping to win rings for the hometown team. A strong corollary with the Prodigal Son story from the Bible is in evidence and here, the two men disagree whether Lebron should be forgiven on his return and welcomed or resented and shunned. Later, the friends will become physically separated by the same act of abandonment as by their basketball idol.

Out of Lebron's self-interested movement also comes a divisive episode. The friend resenting the return argues that Lebron should have known his place. Use of this phrase is interpreted as racism by the other. You see, one of the friends is white and the other is Black. A donnybrook ensues over the connotation of the word "place," as well as the context in its use coming from a close friend as opposed to an unknown person. In the larger picture, it exemplifies the overzealousness of cancel culture, when a single, even ambiguous comment can be the basis for destroying a long-lived relationship.

Rajiv Joseph has crafted a deceptively provocative narrative that engages the viewer whether a sports fan or not. Not only can we view the issues at a friendship level, but some themes can be extrapolated to represent the whole of society and some of the ills that we suffer. The playwright is very effective at using a pop cultural storyline to underpin something with much greater impact.

Kenny Scott and Jordan Lane Shappell are superb in the acting roles, depicting a wide range of feelings as they share the ups and downs of their lives. Their chemistry convinces. At times they banter and mirror one another as shared souls, yet other times they clash and become emotionally distant. Christopher Fitzer's divergent sets representing a spare wine bar in Act 1 and the jumbled upholstery shop in Act 2 enhance the experience. Gregory Robinson's sound and Steven B. Mannshardt's lighting deftly create the sense of the basketball arena at scene openings and other appropriate times.

King James runs through November 3, 2024, at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View CA. For tickets and information, please visit theatreworks.org.