The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity: Pro wrestling Body-Slams Conventional Theater at Second Stage (Time Out NY, May 26, 2010)

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/85890/the-elaborate-entrance-of-chad-deity-at-second-stage-theatre-theater-review

Second Stage Theatre. By Kristoffer Diaz. Dir. Edward Torres. With Usman Ally, Terence
Archie, Desmin Borges, Christian Litke, Michael T. Weiss. 2hrs. One intermission.

Sorry, kids, but the game is fixed, and the fighting is fake -- and I'm not talking about the pro-wrestling shenanigans on display in The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Although Kristoffer Diaz's diesel-fueled showbiz-drama-cum-race-satire is full of choreographed muscle heads pile driving each other to the mat, another contest seems to have been rigged: this year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Last month, you may recall, the board of that prestigious trinket bypassed its expert panel's recommendations and tossed the laurel on Next to Normal, still on Broadway. The musical, about a white, suburban family plagued by mental illness, is a smart, unusually adult Broadway attraction, but Pulitizer-worthy? Chad Deity had been short-listed for the award, and now that it has arrived after its acclaimed 2009 run at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater, we can confirm that this fresh and inventive comedy was robbed. Diaz and his ingenious director, Edward Torres, create a giddily adrenalized, primary-hued circus of racial signifiers and cultural buzzwords to critique political narratives in a post-9/11 America. Chad Deity should have won. If such a dirty trick had been played on the title champion, he wouldn't take it lying down; rather, Chad (Archie) would grab a folding chair and get to work on the Pulitzer suits.

But let's forget the lost gold and focus on the bigger victory. Who'd have predicted the relatively staid Second Stage Theatre (which also premiered Next to Normal, ironically) would present this multicultural fable with MTV smash-cut aesthetics and an angry message of minority empowerment? Chad Deity stands out at season's end as the sort of populist, hip-hop-driven fare we lack in a scene dominated by middle-class angst and normative dramatic structures. Diaz chose a debased and gaudy (albeit wealth-generating) subject and squeezed it hard for metaphorical juice.

And he's not hiding it. As our narrator and ostensible hero, Macedonia Guerra (Borges) explains, "[P]rofessional wrestling is the most uniquely profound artistic expression of the ideals of the United States." A little later, he observes that "what we do is metaphoric...the value of two men in silly outfits pretending to beat each other into submission is not in the fight -- it's in the communion."

In truth, Mace talks too much. It's a miracle Borges doesn't get hoarse or hyperventilate from all the high-speed patter he spews throughout two hours. Chad Deity is by no means a perfect play. It's overwritten in parts, and some details about the fictional corporation THE Wrestling seem confusing (Mace is key to superstar Chad Deity's success, but still he's poorly paid?). Nevertheless, Mace is unfailingly engaging, and he does more than underscore themes; he annotates wrestling moves, offers parenthetical remarks on his and other characters' motives, and works the crowd like a stand-up genius. Borges maintains a shyly swaggering facade that belies the excited teen underneath the jaded pro. Mace knows that his job isn't a sport and that the use of hyperbolic racial stereotypes -- assimilated black Adonis, weaselly Latino, sociopathic Arab, dumb-but-pure white guy -- both mocks and legitimizes the worst prejudices of the audience.

Those biases are sorely tested with the debut of Vigneshwar Paduar (Ally), an Indian-American B-boy who wants to bring a hip-hop Hindi flavor to the ring. THE Wrestling's sharkish white owner (Weiss) rebrands the newcomer as a bin Laden clone called the Fundamentalist and pairs him up with Mace playing a U.S.-hating Pan-Hispanic revolutionary. Forced into this cheap, soul-corroding narrative, Vigneshwar and Mace try to rewrite their scripts in a mad bid to topple Chad (Archie, dancing on the razor's edge of foolish and tragic).

Savvy and yet shockingly sincere, Chad Deity has a final line that may take your breath away, indicating that the creators have more on their minds than "superkicks" and "powerbombs." Diaz and Torres treat their audience with respect, knowing that they can process R. Kelly blasting from the speakers, klieg lights flash-frying their pupils and buff guys in spandex one minute -- and subtle arguments about cultural assimilation the next. This is a story about race, class, wealth and social mobility, wrapped in the sort of bombastic level of showmanship you won't see outside of opera or, naturally, an actual pay-per-view WWE extravaganza. Theater shouldn't necessarily aspire to Vince McMahon's ham-fisted theatrics, but it could be so much more relevant and urgent than it usually is.