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In response to
"yes -- nm"
by
znufrii
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a play about professional wrestling was named best new american play for 2011....a c&p
Posted by
Remlik (aka remlik)
May 17 '11, 10:08
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Kristoffer Diaz' "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" an Off-Broadway drama about race and how it is portrayed in the world of professional wrestling was named the Best New American Play in the 2011 OBIE Awards, a prestigious theater awards ceremony in New York City.
Below is my May 19, 2010 review of the play from it's NYC run:
"Why did the bad guy win?"
Although the two genres are both linked in that they are both live performances that provide, at their best, perfect timing and the performers' abilities to make audiences forget what they are watching is, indeed, a show, professional wrestling and theater rarely, if ever, cross paths on the same stage.
There was the long forgotten Broadway show "Teaneck Tanzai", which featured both Andy Kaufman and the legendary Debbie Harry, which played the Nederlander Theater for all of one official performance. Baron Von Raschke had a one man show about his life several years back. WWE Hall of Famer Johnny Valiant has been doing his one man comedy show for nearly a decade. Scores of improv comedy shows, from NYC's Upright Citizens Brigade on down, have sent up the world of pro wrestling, but beyond that, very, very little.
"The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" will change all that.
"Chad Deity", which opens tomorrow off-Broadway at Second Stage Theater following runs in Chicago, Philadelphia and other markets, dives into the world of professional wrestling and opens the locker room for an entirely new audience. The result? A Pulitzer Prize nomination for Playwright Kristoffer Diaz.
Using long-suffering low-level enhancement talent "Mace" Mendoza (the excellent Desmin Borges, who originated the role in Chicago) as it's narrator, "Chad Deity" (named after Terence Archie's character, T.H.E. Wrestling's All-American champion star in the piece, obviously modeled after Dwayne Johnson.) explores into why professional wrestling is a true American original, the love of creativity and building a story with one's body, the big money (and broken dreams) that comes with the pursuit of that art form, and the pursuit of money, money, money, even at the expense of one's loves, one's heritage and one's happiness.
When Mendoza's family members discover a brash Indian basketball player, Vigneshwar Paduar aka VP, (the supremely talented Usman Ally in a role inspired by WWE's Muhammad Hassan character) on the courts of Brooklyn, Mendoza is suddenly struck with the idea that not only could this guy's gift for the jibber jabber make money, but it could be something truly, deeply special. The two are indeed kindred spirits, finding a brotherhood in their pursuit of wanting to create something memorable and unique.
Mendoza immediately brings VP to THE Wrestling promoter Everett K. Olson (Michael T. Weiss of "The Pretender" doing a shockingly perfect take-off of Vince McMahon), only to learn that Olson, an old-school promoter, sees nothing more in VP than your traditional Middle Eastern wrestler. VP quickly morphs into "The Fundamentalist", complete with a "Sleeper Cell" finishing maneuver and the gimmick takes off - but at what price?
"I don't tell the boss this has been done with Muhammad Hassan and it didn't work out so well. Google it during intermission."
Using professional wrestling as it's backdrop (indeed, many of the scenes take place inside a wrestling ring located center stage, in the promoter's office or backstage), "Chad Deity" begins to explore much more than bodyslams and powerbombs, looking at Mendoza's lone hope of glory with a long-deserved promotional push becoming increasingly entangled with VP, someone who has limited skill and no understanding of the business' traditions.
Even more dangerous, VP isn't as willing as Mendoza to put his own dreams, hopes and personal pride aside for the chance to make money for the "glory" of professional wrestling.
When it all comes to a head during a scene where Mendoza gets to hold onto the T.H.E. championship belt backstage, "Mace" finally grasps onto something he's wanted so bad since childhood, but is obviously never going to really attain, it's a scene comparable to the "I could have been a contender" moment in "On the Waterfront."
Playwright Diaz is obviously a wrestling fan who loves the business and it shows - references to wrestlers who work hard to make less talented (but more marketable) performers become superstars, references to "potatoes" and "respect for the business", the AWA having the "real wrestling" in comparison to the WWF's cartoon characters and even namedropping Sabu and Sheik Abdul Bashir, among others, during a monologue about the long-standing use of racist caricatures by promoters in the business to make money.
Many of the "wrestlers" (all played by Christian Litke, who has done work for WWE in the past) that populate T.H.E.'s events and locker rooms have obviously been inspired by the archetypes we've grown accustomed to in the business - Southern boys, All American heroes, etc.
"Chad Deity" is expertly staged, using every corner of the Second Stage Theater to recreate the feeling of being at a professional wrestling event. The stage, complete with two Titantron-esque screens above a smaller version of a wrestling ring, had an obvious nod to WWE's production. Performers make their ring entrances from all sides of the audience with all the pomp and circumstance of a Wrestlemania entrance, right down to specifically created videos for all the characters. There's even a gimmick stand outside in the lobby selling shirts, posters and foam fingers for "T.H.E. Wrestling" and its stars.
"Chad Deity" is one of those phenomenal pieces of art that wrestling fans dream of - it brings respect and legitimacy to the art form they love and are obsessed with, while at the same time, using the business as a prism to show how twisted one can become chasing their dreams, chasing their next windfall and by forgetting who one truly is in order to get what they believe they want.
"Deity" is both a cold slap to the face of the business and a loving nod at the same time. It's also one of the best pieces of theatrical drama I've seen since the first time I saw the first New York production of "Next to Normal", (which did go on to win a Pulitzer Prize this year), ironically, in the exact same venue, NYC's Second Stage Theater.
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