Wrestling isn’t exactly a subject I’m looking to see a play about. Sure, I watched a little as a kid. Overly muscular men in tight, usually little, clothing wasn’t exactly worth passing up, even if I didn’t quite understand it at the time. And the dramatic developments were truly ludicrous, which is captured elegantly and held up for its own insanity in Kristoffer Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.
Narrated by the central character, Desmin Borges’s Macedonio “Mace” Guerrero, TEEOCD (for short, that’s a long honking title) is filled with the insights of a young man growing up admiring professional wrestling, fully aware of the complex training and Machiavellian coordination that goes into the enterprise. To say the show is well-scripted and insightful would be selling it short, and that whole Pulitzer finalist thing should speak well enough on its own.
Mace tells the tale of his own career as a secondary performer in the THE Wrestling organization, including acting as fall-down fodder for the titular Chad Deity. And yes, his entrance is indeed elaborate and as ridiculous as you’d imagine. Eventually tired of watching a less-talented, but clearly charismatic, wrestler, he ventures to a Brooklyn basketball court to discover a young man primed for his own spotlight, Vigneshwar Paduar, whom Mace brings to the head of the wrestling organization with a bid for stardom.
Up until this point, there have been a host of subtle race-related and social-structure allusions, but by bringing in an Indian man to create a wrestling character, Diaz kicks off his true plot-line: the use of racial stereotyping in the wrestling world is simply an hyperbolic allegory of race relations in America. And he’s not wrong. With punching words that sting more than the demonstrated wrestling moves on stage, Diaz’s dialogue, driven by Borges, Usman Ally (as Paduar), Terence Archie (as the titular Deity), and Michael T. Weiss (as the THE Wrestling head Everett K. Olson), is full, lush, and perfectly balanced with satire, surrealism, and reality.
I don’t want to give away too much of the story, since the developments really work with an element of surprise, and, I presume, gain power upon multiple viewings. But the construction Diaz has built is very much a modern theatrical experience. Much of it is split between Borges’s asides to the audience (at least a good third of the show) and usually very rapid dialogue (the other two-thirds). The asides are interesting, at least to me, since they tell not just about feelings, but about expectations. Diaz does a wonderful job avoiding typical exposition, leaving the dialogue & stage action to cover his points and notes for the audience. And the dénouement, while somewhat harrowing, never feels too preachy.
And the dialogue. Suffice it to say there is something of a treatise on raisin bread that is both powerful, moving, and hilarious it isn’t hard to see the accolades of the play pilling up. And Diaz tosses in a great joke about the cultural tastes of a professional wrestler that will make any theatre fan laugh rather loudly. There’s the blazing speed of Ally’s deliver, perfectly attuned to the character’s believability. There’s healthy interplay between all of the characters, with Archie’s Deity’s ultimate anger at Ally’s Paduar’s riding star building both believably, and in true wrestling form, takes on a delivery of sublime ridiculousness. All I’ll say is there is a great use of a refrigerator’s crisper as a metaphor. At least the audience should think of it as a metaphor.
The performances are uniformly strong, led rather distinctively by Borges. He conveys what I assume to be Diaz’s wish-fulfillment as a character, the love of a profession so ludicrous he doesn’t care. He not only delivers the excellent writing well, but does it with distinction and with actual wrestling moves. It’s a great performance, and if the rumors of transfer to Broadway are true, one that easily deserves a Tony nomination. Easily. Ally’s performance is so much of a caricature, but he does it quite well. There are bits of him sprouting off that are really great, and his moment in the wrestling ring is quite priceless. Archie’s got two of the best speeches and a truly elaborate entrance, and executes all of it with aplomb. Weiss’s role isn’t exactly enjoyable, but he does enough to make it work.
The production of TEEOCD (that name really is a problem, but that’s the point) is equally well-done. There’s a very fun stage setup, complete with wrestling ring, and the play uses the full theatre, much like wrestling does, to captivate and engage the audience. There’s live camera work, running up and down the aisles, and, yes, very elaborate entrances. I did mention this was a modern piece, right? It is very much not a stage row removed from the audience, and it likes it that way. And so do we. Director Edward Torres, who brought the production from Chicago, has done an overall excellent job in breathing life into Diaz’s already stellar piece.
This production of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is a limited run, but I’m expecting that it will be in an open run on Broadway very soon. To paraphrase Borges’s Mace, it’s about community, and Kristoffer Diaz’s play makes it happen.
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