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The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
Diaz’s exhilarating new play embraces the shameless fakery of the alleged sport of pro wrestling to illuminate, in comic but relentless tones, the more pernicious falsities of race, nation and empire. Perennial ring villain Macedonia Guerra (Borges), Mace for short, and cultural-code-switching Indian wonder Vigneshwar Paduar (Ally) form the ultimate anti-American team at the urging of wrestling promoter Everett K. Olson (an ebulliently clueless James Krag). Paduar becomes the vaguely Middle Eastern Fundamentalist, who begins matches by doffing his suicide-bombing belt, and Mace his sombrero-sporting manager, Che Chavez Castro. Their target: African-American world champion Chad Deity (Bolden), whose sculpted body and infinite self-regard barely conceal his lack of talent.
In his first full-fledged production, Brooklyn-based Diaz combines mad inventiveness with a nervy taste for button-pushing. He’s also created a deeply affecting central character; Mace, who narrates the play, is wrestling’s answer to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Rattling off his encyclopedic pop-culture knowledge, stepping out of the frame to offer footnotes on the action or lyrically and rhythmically ruminating on his past and present, Mace comes to dazzling life in Borges’s pitch-perfect performance. The language’s rich texture sometimes saps the play of its momentum, particularly in the first act; we could certainly do without repeated references to the metaphoric nature of the proceedings. But Chad Deity establishes the young writer as a major theatrical force, and Torres’s exuberant production weds the budget of Victory Gardens to the fringe thrill of an old-school House Theatre show.
