Michael T. Weiss as EKO and Terence Archie as Chad Deity
in a scene from The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
A punch in the gut. A right to the jugular. A powerbomb to the midsection. Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity grabs you by the nape of your neck and doesn’t let go until its shattering climax. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2010, Chad Deity is simply the most exciting theatrical event of the year. Diaz puts the world of professional wrestling center stage and then before your eyes turns it into a political parable of the way we live now. Edward Torres who directed the world premiere at Chicago’s Victory Gardens has recreated his remarkable production with the entire original production team (with one exception), as well as three of the five original actors.
Although Diaz’s work is not yet know in New York, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is a very sophisticated piece of theater. Written in the present tense, the play makes use of real time, multi-media technology, a total knowledge of its subject matter, characters directly addressing the audience, audience participation, acceptable political incorrectness, hilarious use of the vernacular, and a narrator that immediately becomes an intimate of the listeners.
It is also a satiric comment on our society, using the cartoon world of wrestling to make its points: the greed, the consumerism, the racism, the xenophobia, the image making, the star system that defines America in this decade. The integration of the projection design by Peter Nigrini (new to the Chicago team) is some of the best use of video in a stage play up until now.
The cast of Desmin Borges, Michael T. Weiss, Terence Archie, Usman Ally and Christian Litke (in order of appearance) has been brilliantly chosen for both their perfect physical presence and acting abilities. The production team of Brian Sidney Bembridge (sets) Christine Pascual (costumes), Jesse Klug (lighting), Mikhail Fiksel (sound), David Wooley (fight director) and the previously mention Nigrini could simply not be better.
To blaring music, the stage reveals the wrestling ring set of a television studio with an office to the side.
Puerto Rican Macedonia Guerra, a mid-level professional wrestler in mid-career, known as The Mace, (played by Borges) tells us his story. Enthralled by television wrestling from the time he was six, it is his dream come true to be working for Everett K. Olson, (Weiss), known as EKO, the Caucasian owner of THE Wrestling.
Desmin Borges (on mat) and Terence Archie (standing)
in a scene from The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
However, the star of THE Wrestling is the All-American champion, the charismatic African-American hero, Chad Deity (Archie), who is not a particularly good wrestler. As The Mace tells us, he has always known that professional wrestling is staged from scenarios pre-rehearsed long in advance in order to sell tickets and merchandise. The Mace’s job is to make Chad Deity look good by doing the heavy-lifting in wrestling parlance. Up until now he hasn’t minded, as he still hungers to be a part of it all.
Without admitting it, The Mace is beginning to tire of the racism, stereotyping, and his always being relegated to playing second banana. When he finds in Brooklyn, a hip young Indian-American, Vigneshwar Paduar (Ally), (nicknamed VP) who is not only a great athlete but equally charismatic, he thinks that VP may be his ticket to the top. The boss, EKO, is taken with VP - but not for The Mace’s reasons.
EKO sees VP as a great asset, now renamed The Fundamentalist, and plays into the wrestling fans’ prejudices, with The Mace as his Latino manager now renamed Che Chavez Velez, The Mexican Revolutionary. For those who haven’t gotten the political agenda yet, The Fundamentalist is given a specialty move called “the sleeper cell kick” when he goes up against the All-American champion. And when The Fundamentalist becomes a media star, the only place he can go is up against Chad Deity, the home-grown hero.
If Borges were not on such an adrenaline high as The Mace, his express-train delivery as the narrator might not be so effective. Borges is also terrific at delineating a man who knows he will always be a cog in the wheel, but is willing to accept that the works can’t run without him. Archie not only has the good looks and the bulging muscles to be the Chad Deity of our imagination, he is excellent at Deity’s self-confidence and overweening arrogance as the superstar who brags convincingly about how many empty crispers he has in his refrigerator.
With a terrific baritone voice as the ring-side announcer, Weiss is also amusing as the Big Boss who tells it like it is, and the rest of us can just lump it if our feelings or sensibilities are hurt. Like most CEOs he is just in it for the ratings which equate to earning power. As VP, later The Fundamentalist, Ally has the tightly wound tenseness of the time bomb waiting to detonate, while he seeks his place in a world that has no use for him. Litke gives able support as three wrestlers (Joe Jabroni, Billy Heartland, and Old Glory) whose job it is to lose to the champion.
Diaz has a terrific ear for the wrestling lingo and he makes excellent use of it for both local color and for the humor implicit in its choice of idiom. A good deal of the show is devoted to Negrini’s hilariously over-the-top promos and elaborately filmed entrances that are viewed on dual video screens high above the ring before the wrestlers enter through the audience to blinding spotlights designed by Klug. Pascual’s costumes capture the circus–like atmosphere of the professional wrestling ring, while at the same time mocking us for our acceptance of such stereotyping.
Torres’ realistic direction high on amphetamines makes us almost miss the scathing satire of the image men and the spin doctors who manipulate public opinion with an agenda that is predetermined to work on people’s innate prejudices and bigotry. At the same time Torres keeps the temperature and tension continually rising to a fever pitch.
Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is a play that must be seen, both because it is an entirely theatrical event that can not be experienced any other way and because it is the breakout work of an important new voice in the American theater. Edward Torres’ production is both riveting and breath-taking for all the right reasons, and his cast offers star-making performances from unfamiliar actors who should be heard of soon again in important future projects.
(through June 20)
Second Stage Theatre, 305 W. 43rd Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-246-4422 or http://www.2ST.com