This review is available online at:
http://www.onoffbroadway.com/2010/05/elaborate-entrance-of-chad-deity.html
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
"The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" has the distinction of being the first Off-Broadway play ever written that can appeal equally to seasoned theatergoers and World Wrestling Entertainment fans.
Kristoffer Diaz' play examines professional wrestling not so much as a sport, but as a form of theater built upon ethnic and racial stereotyping. Wrestling serves as a vehicle to explore the corruption of personal identity, patriotism, commerce, storytelling and popular culture.
Macedonio "The Mace" Guerra, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx who is now a middle-rank pro-wrestler, discovers Vigneshwar, a young Indian from Brooklyn with the sharp personality and athletic potential to become a star wrestler. Guerra's boss, based loosely on Vince McMahon, repackages Vigneshwar before the public as an Islamic terrorist who denounces "all things American."
Chad Deity, the league's all-American champ, understands how the professional wrestling circuit works better than anyone else. He gives Guerra and Vigneshwar advice on how to build their characters and plots how he can use their onstage personas to his advantage.
Diaz' comedic drama is clever and consistently entertaining. Guerra, played by the energetic Desmin Borges, serves as a hip-hop style narrator and fills us in on the grim realities of the wrestling world.
The end of the play, which suddenly takes on a serious tone, is a bit of a letdown. Diaz also depends too heavily on Guerra to provide expository information.
Edward Torres' flashy production is marked by a regulation size ring where the actors literally engage in physical action. Not only are there actual wrestling matches filled with physical mayhem and body slams, the actors energetically run throughout the theater as their wrestler characters. They wave flags, flex their muscles and throw around fake money.
"The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" plays at Second StageTheatre through June 20.
305 W. 43rd St., 212-246-4422, 2st.com.
