Boxer Max Baer once defined fear as “standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early.”

Baer should know. In 1935, two hours after Louis had married Marva Trotter, he stepped into the ring, KO’d Baer in the fourth round, and went off to celebrate his marriage.

In a 17-year career starting in 1934, Louis won 68 matches and lost three. In 2005, he was named the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization and the No. 1 puncher of all time by Ring magazine.

The Old Globe Theatre presents the world premiere of Steven Drukman’s In This Corner through Feb. 10, directed by Ethan McSweeny. The stage of the Cassius Carter appropriately has been converted into a boxing ring for the occasion.

Both men were used as tools in their respective national political machines.

Louis (Dion Graham) is perhaps best known as the African American who first lost to, then knocked out Nazi hope Max Schmeling (Rufus Collins) in the politically charged years 1936 and 1938, respectively. The war was about to break out and the “final solution” would come later, but the touted Aryan supremacy during and after the Berlin Olympics was on the line. Schmeling, the great hero of the Nazis after the first fight, so angered the Führer with the 1938 loss that he had Schmeling drafted and sent on suicide missions. (Schmeling infuriated Hitler further by refusing to become a Nazi, and, in fact, harbored two Jews during Kristallnacht.)

Meanwhile, Louis, born of poor sharecroppers in Alabama and lionized in the U.S. after defeating the German challenger, was still barred by Jim Crow laws from celebrating with his white buddies in local bars and restaurants. After his retirement in 1949, Louis, a generous man with time and money, was impoverished and forced into the wrestling ring to make a few bucks. He spent his last four years in a wheelchair and died in 1981 of a heart attack.

Though these men were opponents, they were never personal enemies. In fact Schmeling, who after the war became a rich man representing Coca-Cola in Germany, paid Louis’ medical costs and reportedly served as a pallbearer at his funeral. (President Reagan bent the rules and had Louis buried at Arlington National Cemetery.)

The relationship between sports and politics is a good topic for theater; it seems odd that this is the first play about Schmeling and Louis. In This Corner has some great elements and some that could use revision.

Drukman does a good job of drawing the time period with costumes, music and three sports reporter characters, who demonstrate the alliterative purple prose that was prized in sports reporting of the day. Katie Barrett, the sole woman in the cast, gets a workout playing all six female roles – and proves well up to the task.

Collins is a wonder – not only does he play Schmeling effectively, but he puts on a 20-minute pre-show demonstration of a boxing workout that made me wonder how he could even talk, let alone act afterward.

Graham is somewhat less effective, I suspect largely because he adheres to his manager’s “never smile” admonition. That keeps him in character but limits his characterization significantly.

Mainly, though, the script (which was commissioned by the Old Globe) could use some reworking. There are too many short, staccato scenes and puzzling sudden time shifts that detract from continuity, so that the play comes across as a series of episodes rather than a cohesive effort. Extraneous material is introduced and dropped (for example, Louis shows up initially with a violin. Though it is true that he studied briefly as a kid, this seems unnecessary information here.)

The best-written scene by far is the one in which T. Ryder Smith, as the referee, does his “third man in the ring” monologue. “You really think this is about you?” he says to the boxers. “Without me you’re nothing. I’m the third man in the ring .... I make the KO OK.” It’s a great piece of writing, splendidly delivered by Smith.

Drukman reportedly was struck by Schmeling’s chameleon-like ethical sense, but that does not come across in the script.

There are ways to pump up the drama here. I hope Drukman reworks In This Corner. It is a worthy topic.

In This Corner plays through Feb. 10 at The Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Shows Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinées Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619 -23-GLOBE or visit www.TheOldGlobe.org.

Montreal’s Cirque du Soleil is a phenomenon like no other. Since 1984, this circus (which began without animals –-they now have one show incorporating horses) has become an international conglomerate, with some 14 imaginative shows to its credit and a stable of artists who can perform athletic feats unheard of by lesser mortals. Cirque shows usually have a theme, if not a plot, lots of new-agey, multilingual music and fabulous costumes. But they will always surprise you.

Who else would consider building a show of sublime grace, incredible physicality and crazy antics around the death of a clown? That show would be their latest, Corteo, playing through February 10 under the yellow and blue grand chapiteau (big top) at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Daniele Finzi Pasca, creator and director of this show, says the show is “situated at a strange level between heaven and earth, where the gods and humans can interact through the medium of circus.”

Corteo features several angels who float around (rather more often than necessary for my taste); a whole slew of mourners who parade across the stage several times in between other acts; a whistling ringmaster; two tiny people, one of whom (Valentyna Pahlevanyan) floats suspended from six helium balloons over the audience, asking for a push; a violinist who can play holding her instrument behind her head; and the usual Cirque assortment of tumblers, jugglers and acrobats who can do impossible things.

Kids will like the bouncing beds routine, where tumblers jump around and across three onstage beds (don’t let your kids try this at home). There’s a lovely airborne pas de deux by Oleg Ouchakov and Evgeniya Astashkina, combining strength and grace in a way only Cirque performers can. Anastasia Bykovskaya does a heart-stopping, 45-degree high- wire act. But my favorite is the “Paradise” number, which features a 98-foot Tramponet (a combination trampoline and safety net) with three Korean Cradles suspended high above. The artists are thrown between these three platforms, placed at an unprecedented distance from each other, and rebound off the Tramponet.

Cirque tries another innovation in this show: The audience is split in two, both sides facing the revolving stage. As the show opens, a team of clowns works each side of the audience, allowing us to look across and see what’s going on over there. An exercise in alternate reality?

Though you know you’re always going to see certain types of physical feats at a Cirque show, the presentation is always fresh. Corteo seems more episodic and less coherent than many of the shows, but you will never complain of boredom. Cirque du Soleil is, well, a circus.

Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo plays through Feb. 10 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Shows Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 1 and 5 p.m.; Saturday matinée at 4 p.m. For tickets visit www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueduSoleil/en/showstickets/corteo/tickets/sandiego.htm