Fouls and air balls

The Actor’s Theatre of Sacramento provides a quick, empathy-expanding look at the descent into mediocrity of middle-aged men in its latest production, Jason Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning That Championship Season. The action takes place in one night as five middle-school friends—their basketball coach included—come together to celebrate a 20-year-old trophy and soon realize that they’ve all become people they can’t respect. The play’s cast of local heavyweights provides nonstop momentum, and impassioned confessionals litter the relic-strewn set. Scott Divine’s rummy loser plays the fool to the cast’s pathos-ridden protagonists, and Ed Claudio plays a conventional coach who’s stuck in the past, but has always wanted the best for “his boys” and himself.