For many athletes, years of coaching can present a routine, a goal and an identification – but what occurs when it all stops?
That query is at the coronary heart of a new play which explores males’s mental health through the world of boxing.
The Corner Man follows a fighter compelled to confront life outside the ring after spending years devoted to the sport.
Through his story, the play explores dropping a sense of goal, the issue some males have speaking about their mental health and the support they can discover in each other.
Writer and producer Cathal J Ferris said the concept grew from his own expertise of boxing and conversations with fighters.
“What is a boxer after he retires really played on my mind,” he said, including that the same questions around identification and goal can apply beyond sport.
Cathal J Ferris said the play was impressed by his expertise of boxing and conversations with fighters [BBC]
‘What is a boxer after he retires?’
The play follows Liam Casey, who has devoted much of his life to boxing, from the age of about 9 into his 30s.
For Ferris, the story is not only about leaving the ring, but about dropping the routine that comes with it.
“The idea of structure and what life is like whenever you lose that structure definitely played on my mind,” he said.
“There are people who work in jobs for 10, 12, 13-odd years and just decide to change industries.
“I think there’s a lot of people who may not know what to do with themselves after.”
Ferris grew up performing in amateur theatre in Belfast and Lisburn before going to drama school in London in 2012.
He said returning home had given him the chance to tell new stories about the place where he grew up.
“I’m a Belfast boy at coronary heart, and it is great to inform tales from the metropolis,” he said.
Ferris said “the boxing group in Belfast is phenomenal” and that it played an important part in shaping the story.
‘If you’re a man and you’re struggling… speak to somebody’
Alongside boxing, the play also looks at how men talk – or sometimes do not talk – about their mental health.
“I think the outdated phrase is ‘say nothing’, and we know that all too nicely,” Ferris said.
“As a man, it is undoubtedly exhausting for myself to speak about these issues, and I attempt to be a little bit more open.”
In the play, Liam struggles with life after boxing, but it is the other men around him who help provide a support network – something Ferris said was an important part of the story.
“It is healthy to speak, so undoubtedly if you’re a man and you’re struggling, at least communicate to somebody,” he said.
‘Men supporting males’
Director Emma Copeland took up boxing classes while preparing for the production [BBC]
Director Emma Copeland said she knew relatively little about boxing before becoming involved in the production, but soon immersed herself in the sport.
“I got actually into boxing and went to a load of boxing courses and still going,” she said.
Copeland said she also watched films, read books and autobiographies and listened to podcasts to make sure she knew the world she was portraying.
For her, one of the most important parts of the play is the support the men offer each other.
“The angle that I see is that males supporting males, and serving to and speaking and encouraging support with each other and encouraging that dialog,” she said.
“Rather than shutting it down or locking themselves away in their own emotions.”
‘Make a few lads think’
Gary Trainor plays several roles in the production [BBC]
For actor Gary Trainor, the experience Liam goes through is not something that only applies to boxers.
Trainor, who plays gym owner Marty as well as several other roles, said suddenly losing something which has been central to your life could happen in many different circumstances.
“He’s been so engrossed in the world of boxing for his total life, to lose it in one harm and to attempt and determine out his life after that is, I think, most likely common in a lot of males’s lives,” he said.
“That could be possibly dropping a job, anything like that.”
Trainor described the play as “full of coronary heart and humour” and said he hoped it would “make a few lads think”.
For him, its message is a straightforward one – that “males should speak to each other a bit more about what they are feeling and how they are processing issues”.
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