The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
Three of five stars
Stageworks Theatre, 1120 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa
Through June 18: Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.
$15-$35.
813-374-2416. stageworkstheatre.org.
Jennifer Ring
So much of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is original and unpredictable, you can’t help but want it to add up to something special. I mean, where else have you seen a play that takes place in a wrestling ring, reveals some of the secrets of “pro” wrestling, and even features a few short matches? Where else have you watched a relatively ordinary young man of Indian descent be turned into “The Fundamentalist,” an apparently Arab wrestler who carries a yoga mat rather than a prayer carpet, and whose point is to be defeated by the public’s American hero? And finally, where else have you, the innocent audience member, been asked to cheer and jeer at the good and bad guys, as if you were at the “real” thing itself, a typically staged wrestling tourney? This play is diverting, entertaining, fun. It’s theatrical as all get-out.
Only it doesn’t ultimately mean much.
I’m sorry to say so. I was ready from the first few moments of Chad Deity to discover a significance as vivid as the language and costuming of these colorful battlers. By the end of Act One, it still hadn’t surfaced. By the end of Act Two, it made a noble try — but not persuasively. So as I walked out of Stageworks at the end of the drama, I had to conclude that author Kristoffer Diaz had everything in his play except something to tell us. All the tips on wrestler’s etiquette, all the exposés of wrestler’s psychologies, were interesting, convincing, just not in the service of a greater vision. Too bad. It all looked so promising.
Even so, Diaz’s construct has got a lot going for it. Its central figure is Macedonio Guerra (“Mace”), a wrestler who promptly tells us that his job is to lose to Chad Deity in such a way as to make Chad look good. Mace is played skillfully by Zander Morales as a street kid lucky enough to get a job he loves doing, and professional enough to keep the public unaware of the trick of his trade. (Morales does have a bad habit of swallowing his words sometimes, though.) Then we meet Chad — played for good comedy by the frighteningly muscular Brice Batemon. Chad looks like a winner, even if, as Mace tells us, he’s not really talented. Batemon as Chad grins and beams at the audience, flexes his pectorals, luxuriates in his celebrity — but seldom reveals, as Mace does, his humanity. Employing both these wrestlers and running the organization called “THE Wrestling” is EKO, portrayed sharply by Leigh Simons as a bottom-line thinker whose instinct for generating lucre is deeper and shrewder than Mace or anyone else can fathom. The plot of the play concerns the introduction of Vigneshwar Paduar (“VP”) to EKO and the others, and his transformation into “The Fundamentalist,” a character American audiences are sure to despise. As played by Afsheen Misaghi, VP is a comfortable narcissist whose first love (after himself) is basketball, and whose transformation into a wrestling villain refuses to take the path that the others plan out for it. Rounding out the cast is Cornelio Aguilera, who enjoyably plays three emblematic wrestlers with much action and few lines.
Now, if you’re thinking that author Diaz might have a point to make about Muslim fundamentalism and its complex status in American eyes, I have to warn you: No, he doesn’t. If you’ve read director Karla Hartley’s program note affirming that the play is about “embracing your identity and owning your truth,” I have to say: I wish it were. And if you’re thinking that the name “Chad Deity” might be pointing us in the direction of a comment on athletic heroes, or our need for role models, or on the Deity Itself, I have to inform you: No it isn’t. In fact, the character Chad Deity is probably the least interesting figure in the entire play. What Diaz’s work does offer is some inside information about the wrestling business, a few fascinating body slams, Hartley’s crackerjack direction, Katrina Stevenson’s vividly silly costumes and some great film clips of wrestlers on the huge screen against the back wall. And there’s that audience participation, which is really great fun. Beyond that: no unifying perspective.
Which is only disappointing if you want the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts. I do — not just in this, but in every play I see. Still, Chad Deity is unique, nuts-and-bolts informative, and at times funny. It offers a spectacle far different from any other play we’ve witnessed.
That’s certainly enough to justify its existence.
Mark E. Leib's theater criticism for CL has won seven awards for excellence from the Society for Professional Journalists. His own plays have been produced Off-Broadway and in Chicago, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and the Tampa Bay Area. He is a Continuing Instructor at USF, and has an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, where he won the CBS Foundation Prize in Playwriting. Contact him here.
