‘Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth’ at Longacre Theater

Mike Tyson at a news conference. Photography of his one-man Broadway show was not allowed. Credit Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Perhaps you are among the millions of Americans who have muttered, “If I hear one more aging celebrity trying to make a buck by spinning his youthful debaucheries and misdeeds into a redemption story, I’m going to bust him in the nose.�

If so, you might want to stay away from the Longacre Theater. The guy doing just such a spin job on the stage there could punch you back in a way that your face would not soon forget.

He’s Mike Tyson. the former heavyweight boxing champion, and his one-man show, “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth,� which opened Thursday for a run through Aug. 12, is among the odder spectacles Broadway has seen in a while. Mr. Tyson, 46, is doing little more than relating his well-publicized life story, and, under Spike Lee ’s direction, he’s doing so with a clumsiness startling to see on a Broadway stage (and at a ticket price that tops out at $199).

Yet that incongruous, almost childlike Tyson charm pokes through occasionally and makes you momentarily forget how ham-handed and manipulative the show is. Sure, we should save our accolades for the many people who have transcended difficult beginnings without abusing drugs, racking up a rape conviction and biting off a piece of another guy’s ear. But by the end of “Undisputed Truth� you may at least be willing to grant that it would be swell if Mr. Tyson has finally found a nondestructive way to exist in the world.

The show, written by Mr. Tyson’s wife, Kiki Tyson, is mostly aimed at Mr. Tyson’s fans, alluding to rather than detailing the signature events in his life in a way calculated to draw whoops of support from the audience (which on Tuesday night obliged enthusiastically). But it’s a lazily structured biographical tour even for that audience.

Spike Lee, the director of “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth,” taking a photograph outside the Longacre Theater on opening night. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Mr. Lee, who attached himself to the show after a version of it appeared in Las Vegas in April, has not brought to it the dramatic ebb and flow of his best movies. No one point is particularly higher or lower than any other, and some personal milestones, like Mr. Tyson’s initial winning of a championship in 1986, are skipped entirely.

There are overly long stretches in which Mr. Tyson trashes Robin Givens, his former wife; Mitch Green, a boxer with whom Mr. Tyson had an out-of-the-ring altercation in 1988; and the boxing promoter Don King. There is a strident denial that he raped a Miss Black America contestant in 1991, a crime for which he served three years in prison.

And there are awkward efforts to wring sympathy out of the deaths of three people who Mr. Tyson tells us very little about: his mother, his sister and one of his children. Mr. Lee does nothing to help Mr. Tyson set up these should-be-poignant moments; they materialize without warning in the midst of the otherwise jaunty, lighthearted, profane narrative, and the audience is supposed to adopt instant somberness. Then, just as abruptly, it’s back to the jaunty narrative. Mr. Tyson isn’t nearly a skilled enough performer to pull off those kinds of transitions.

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He is, though, surprisingly amusing when the script lets him be. Early in the show Mr. Tyson is talking about his childhood in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and a picture is projected of the building where he lived, which apparently has had a makeover since Mr. Tyson lived there. “It didn’t look like this,� Mr. Tyson says, looking at the image with a wry contempt. “Spike just took this picture last week.�

And his description of the dumps he fought in early in his career is comically vivid.

“If the crowd didn’t like your performance,� he says, “they didn’t boo you, they started fighting among themselves, to show you how it was done.�

Mr. Tyson has been known to make fun of his own poor diction, most memorably in a skit on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,� and untangling his verbiage is a constant challenge during this two-hour, intermissionless show. Doing so rewards you with a few laughs but no real insights, especially on the most central question: What turned Mike Tyson, who was until relatively recently a volatile man with a knack for making bad decisions, into the guy we’re seeing now, a fellow who appears to be at peace with and able to laugh at himself?

Passing mentions of his wife and veganism provide hints of an answer, but, as with many other points in this show, the opportunity to inject something substantive into the proceedings is allowed to pass, and Mr. Tyson’s story just sort of runs out of gas. That leaves the audience unable to make an educated guess as to whether the new, improved Iron Mike will stick around, or whether Mr. Tyson will fall off one wagon or another as he has so often in the past.

Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth

Category Broadway. Boxing, Solo Performance, Play

Credits Created and performed by Mike Tyson; Directed by Spike Lee

Cast Starring Mike Tyson

Preview July 31, 2012

Opened August 2, 2012

Closing Date August 12, 2012

This information was last updated: April 26, 2017

Schedule information on Friday with a theater review of “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth,” at the Longacre Theater, misstated the show’s running time. As the review correctly noted, it is 2 hours, not 1 hour 30 minutes.

A theater review on Friday about “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth,” at the Longacre Theater, misstated Mr. Tyson’s age. He is 46, not 45.

A version of this review appears in print on August 3, 2012, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Climbing in the Ring With Himself. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe