"What's my name, Uncle Tom??"

What’s in a name? What if you had a hand in renaming yourself? These are some of the questions playwright Will Powers asks in his new play, "Fetch Clay Make Man" at McCarter Theatre Center playing through February 14th. This fast-paced theater piece follows the relationship between 23 year-old Muhammad Ali (renamed from Cassius Clay) and a 63-year old Stepin Fetchit (actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry), a man with many identities and names.

The play is set in 1965 as Ali prepares to defend his title of heavyweight champion of the world, and as Stepin Fetchit locks horns with William Fox, the powerful creator of the multimillion Fox Film Corporation.

Step, as Ali calls him, is not doing well in the heady 1960s era of civil rights. When he meets Ali, before his second bout with Sonny Liston, Step has already been painted a villain for his earlier vaudeville and film career as a famous actor who made a career of stereotyping black men as shiftless, slow and dull.

However, when he started acting in silent films in 1927 and later in “talkies,” he signed with Fox Studios in 1929, and was the first black actor to become a millionaire, eventually appearing in 54 films.

Ben Vereen steals the show from the opening minutes of the first scene as he shuffles, croons and dances across the stage to the closing minutes when he regains his dignity. Not only can Vereen, who his famous for his role in the Broadway show Pippin and the first television miniseries, Roots, imitate Step’s on stage persona, he can show the real Perry as the bright and manipulative man he was.

When Muhammad Ali sends for Step, he also wants something from him: the secret of early African American boxer Jack Johnson’s anchor punch. “I’m in my prime and you’re in your renaissance,” Ali croons. As Ali, a fluid Evan Parke from Broadway's The Lion King also dances and struts across Riccardo Hernandez’s boxing ring of a stage.

Ali has recently converted to Islam and is following the The Messenger, Elijah Muhammad, who he also trusts with his life and boxing career. John Earl Jelks who plays Brother Rashid is trusted to keep Ali in line, reminding him of his responsibilities to his Muslim brothers and to The Messenger. This unforgiving, soldier also gives a hard time to the most colorful character on stage, Muhammad’s wife, Sonji Clay played by a seductive Sonequa Martine, a regional stage and television actor. Sonji’s exchanges with Step bring up the era’s dialogue between the old and young, and with Rashid she plays out the issues among the young themselves.

Richard Masur plays the obnoxious studio executive William Fox, offering Perry the rewards of the white Hollywood machine so long as he continues to insult himself and his race in films. Director Des McAnuff, a two time Tony Award winner and artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, makes this a seamless, tight production, as fluid as a heavyweight bout, with many knockout punches.

There’s no color in Howell Binkley’s stark lighting or the black & white set design which glides back and forth between Ali’s boxing suite and Fox’s 1929 lion’s den like office. Peter Nigrini’s projection design and Darron I.West’s soundscape provides more than sufficient atmospheric suggestion.

Did Ali and Step rename themselves or did others choose these new names for them? Do they control their destinies or will society stunt and limit them for the price of fame and wealth? These become the pivotal questions for this drama. And what exactly can Step give to Ali, the anchor punch or a more substantial gift?