In all my years of theatergoing, I’ve never seen a play or production quite like Chance Theater’s Orange County Premiere of Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity, at once a hilariously spot-on look at the wild, weird, and wacky world of professional wrestling and a subtly scathing critique of the American Melting-Pot Dream.

An infectiously exuberant Rudy Solis III stars, not as the relatively secondary title character, but as Bronx-born-and-bred Puerto Rican-American Macedonio Guerra, whose childhood love of pro wrestling has led to a full-time professional gig in which he must lose every match he appears in as “The Mace” while making the inevitable winner (usually 6’6” African-American wrestling god Chad) look like he deserves every victory, no matter that, as wrestling skills go, Chad (Londale Theus Jr.) can’t hold a candle to our smaller, scrappier hero.

And despite never being allowed to win, Macedonio/Mace absolutely loves his job, even if it involves working for a racist xenophobe like Everett K. Olson (James Michael McHale), and even though it means he’ll never wear the ten-pound gold belt of a champion.

Enter Macedonio’s Indian-American buddy Vigneshwar Paduar (RJ Navarra Balde II), aka VP, a pint-sized straight-outta-Brooklyn dynamo who Mace thinks has what it takes to make it in the ring, and it takes his boss just one look at VP for inspiration to strike.

What if Vigneshwar Paduar were to be transformed into “The Fundamentalist,” a turbaned Islamic terrorist bent on destroying such flag-waving all-American heroes as Billy Heartland and Old Glory (both played by “Bad Guy” Aaron McGee), and what if Mace were to don sombrero and poncho to become “illegal Mexican-American immigrant Che Chavez Castro,” bound and determined to cheat “real” Americans of everything they hold dear.

Along the way to The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity’s grand finale, a match-up between Chad and a character I’ll opt not to name, Chance Theater audiences are treated to body slam after body slam in the life-size wrestling ring that serves as centerpiece to Fred Kinney’s dazzler of a set, adding up to the roughest, realest, and most extensive set of wrestling moves you’ll ever see on stage, courtesy of fight director extraordinaire Martin Noyes. (I honestly wonder how anyone in the cast escapes unscathed.)

Still, breathlessly entertaining as The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity is, it’s not merely playwright Diaz’s intention to keep audiences cheering the hero and booing the villain.

By play’s end, you may find yourself wondering why you’ve been rooting for the bad guys when the actual good guys are the immigrants Everett K. Olson deliberately demonizes to keep ratings and profits sky-high.

Directing for Chance Theater, an inspired Jeremy Aluma and his pitch-perfect cast deliver the action-packed goods, and then some.

Solis makes for a dynamic, charismatic, sympathetic Macedonio, masterfully delivering Mace’s multitude of informative monologs, and though VP makes a relatively late first appearance, once he’s on stage, Balde steals pretty much every scene he’s in as the fierce and feisty “Fundamentalist,” who ends up the the play’s unexpected conscience.

McHale’s high-octane featured turn as crafty schemer Everett K. Olson proves once again why he is a Chance Theater treasure, the same can be said for Matt Takahashi, revealing comedic gifts as a referee not in Diaz’s script but whose work here is not only invaluable, it’s some of Takahashi’s best, and the thrice-terrific McGee makes for the baddest of bad guys in multiple roles.

As for Chad Deity himself, it’s hard to imagine anyone better suited for the role that Londale’s superhero-proportioned, loving-every-second-of-it king of the ring.

Kinney’s one-of-a-kind boxing-ring set is complemented to perfection by Kara Ramlow’s razzle-dazzle lighting, Bradley Allen Lock’s character/“character”-perfect costumes, Nick Santiago’s panoramic widescreen projections, Bebe Herrera’s wresting match-ready props, and Marc Antonio Pritchett’s powerhouse sound design.

Understudies Steven Linares, Jeff Lowe, Duane Robinson are set to go on at several scheduled performances and also as needed.

Amanda Zarr is assistant director. Joseph Galizia is dramaturg. Savannah May is production assistant.

Kaylee Mesa is stage manager and Catt Fox-Uruburu is assistant stage manager.

The particularly challenging production/staging demands presented by The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity are the most likely reason few theaters dare take a chance on doing it justice. Not surprising given Chance Theater’s track record, the Orange County gem has taken the risk, and the results are nothing short of spectacular.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
October 1, 2022
Photos: Photo by Doug Catiller, True Image Studio; Camryn Long

Tags: Chance Theater, Kristoffer Diaz, Orange County Theater Review