Goodman's lively 'LUCHA TEOTL' celebrates Mexican professional wrestling
“LUCHA TEOTL” — ★ ★ ★
Spectators attending Goodman Theatre's rollicking, unrelentingly physical “LUCHA TEOTL” may never view pro wrestling or theater in the same way.
A theater-sport hybrid inspired by Mexican professional wrestling known as lucha libre, “LUCHA TEOTL” (pronounced lou-cha tay-oat) is produced in cooperation with The Chicago Latino Theater Alliance and Destinos, The Chicago International Latino Theater Festival. Goodman's production follows the 2021 premiere at Dallas' Prism Movement Theatre.
In a video preview, Christopher Llewyn Ramirez, who wrote and directed the play with Jeff Colangelo, explained that “LUCHA TEOTL” is not a play about pro wrestling.
“It's a pro wrestling play,” he said.
A play designed to replicate a sport demands action, which six double- and triple-cast actor/athletes (including several professional wrestlers) deftly perform. It also demands audience participation, which Ramirez and Colangelo encourage and which Goodman's opening-night crowd obliged. The result is an enjoyable glimpse into a sport that is rarely depicted on the stage. And yet theatergoers will recognize in “LUCHA TEOTL” those themes — tradition and honor, hubris and betrayal, reconciliation and redemption — that have animated drama for centuries. On those accounts, “LUCHA TEOTL” delivers.
The action unfolds over the course of 100 intermissionless minutes on a full-size wrestling ring in Goodman's Owen Theatre. Against set designer Anna Louizos' Aztec temple backdrop and an enormous Aztec calendar illuminated by Jason Lynch's colorful, arena-style lighting, luchadores (wrestlers) body slam, head lock, leg sweep and aerial assault their opponents to the cheers and jeers of an enthusiastic audience. And they do it dressed in Nicole Alvarez's glittering costumes representing Aztec gods.
Classified as villainous “rudos” or heroic “tecnicos,” the masked luchadores who compete in the fictional Lucha Teotl Alliance are practiced trash-talkers with outsize personalities and swagger to spare.
The likeable Joey Ibanez plays third-generation luchador Huitzi, a tecnico making his professional debut against the veteran Tezca (Luis “Aski” Palomino, who also serves as wrestling coordinator), an infamous rudo fighting his last match.
After Huitzi's loss, Coyol (the imposing Paloma “Star” Vargas), a veteran rudo eager to change her image, offers to mentor him. Together, they defeat more experienced opponents, including the sinister Xolotl (Palomino) and Quetzacoatl (Molly Fernandez) and The Rabbits, a boozy, bungling duo played by Palomino and Hernandez. Pride gets in the way of Huitzi and Coyol's partnership.
The cast also includes Jamey Feshold as a luchador; Ramon Camin and Rinska Carrasco as a pair of commentators who serve up snark with their play-by-play; the lithe Jean Claudio as an overwhelmed referee oblivious to the rudos' dirty tricks; and Victor Marana as the Maestro de Ceremonia, charged with explaining lucha libre's history and reminding impressionable audience members: “Please don't try this at home.”
But the play has a few problems, beginning with one-dimensional characters whose motives aren't always clear, suggesting the playwrights sacrificed character for spectacle. Additionally, Ramirez and Colangelo fail to properly set up a conflict introduced late in the play. Those puzzling, penultimate moments ring false and diminish the impact of the coda — a ritualistic dance involving the passing of a tradition from one generation to the next — that makes for an unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise entertaining show.
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Location: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, (312) 443-3800, goodmantheatre.org
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday through Oct. 29. Also 2 p.m. Oct. 26
Tickets: $25-$70
Running time: About 105 minutes, no intermission
Parking: Nearby garages, discounted parking with Goodman Theatre validation at the Government Center Self Park at Clark and Lake streets
Rating: For most audiences; includes stylized/choreographed violence