So I’m always interested in efforts to make theater more accessible. I recently saw The Interrobangers, by M. Sloth Levine at the Boston Public Library. Tickets were pay-what-you-want, and, as a result of this (as well as the subject matter, probably), the crowd skewed much younger than a typical theater performance.

The show was a lot of fun. It’s essentially Scooby-Doo, except the real mystery is how do you make a place for yourself as a queer young person. Well, there’s another mystery too, but the mystery of going from kid to adult with queerness thrown in the mix is the main point. The tech was fantastic, starting with the amazing dog puppet and continuing with great sets and some other puppetry that I daren’t describe because spoilers.

Trying to make Scooby-Doo into something with genuine emotional content is a tough needle to thread, and Levine and the cast do a great job of making something that is both cartoonish and then also very much not.

It’s not a perfect show—there is a lot of speechifying at the end, where the characters tell the audience What it All Means, which I suspect is the hallmark of a relatively new playwright. Also, the parts of the story that don’t involve embracing queer identity are VERY MUCH left hanging. This was annoying, but it was still a great night at the theater, and I was glad so many people got to enjoy it.

The following week, I attended Chaotic Wrestling: Seeing Red at the Sons of Italy in Watertown, MA. Now, before you tell me that this isn’t a theatrical performance, I’d like to refer you to the Wikipedia entry for the Commedia Dell’Arte, the enormously influential popular theatrical movement in Italy in the 16th century.

A commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of commedia is the lazzo, a joke or “something foolish or witty”, usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine.

AND

The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types and stock characters, such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravado. The characters are exaggerated “real characters…”

So, something that’s both scripted and improvised, full of stock characters that are often exaggerated types of real people? Yep, that’s wrestling, all right!

And, like the Commedia of old, wrestling is for the people! We had second-row seats that cost us 20 bucks! For 3 hours of live entertainment! Absolutely unbeatable bargain, and general admission tickets were even cheaper.

The highlight of the night was the tag-team gauntlet, in which a bunch of tag teams competed for the honor of challenging God’s Greatest Creation (featuring Brother Steve and Deacon Chaos) for the championship next month.

There was also a theme of people trying to wrestle much larger people. So Ricky Smokes, who is not a small person, took on Ace Romero, who probably weighs at least 400 pounds. Comedy ensued as Smokes tried to suplex Romero but couldn’t lift him off the ground. This was repeated later when petite Shannon Levangie took on Tyree Taylor, who probably weighs three times as much as she does. It was great fun to see her usual high-flying moves fall flat as she went off the top rope and Taylor simply caught her.

Charismatic and athletic champion Aaron “Evil Gay, The Dime Piece” Rourke defended his heavyweight championship and then, later, lost it in a match that was supposed to be between two other people. (Wrestling, like life, can be complicated.) Worth saying here that Rourke, whose gimmick is that he’s weird as well as SUPER gay, is a crowd favorite. There were a couple of minutes when he was in the face of his opponents, and the crowd would chant, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” And then, at the end of the night, he was climbing up to the top rope to pull JT Dunn down, and Dunn kissed him! And the crowd went crazy.

That’s right, folks, the performers made the homoerotic subtext of wrestling into just text, and the crowd freakin’ loved it. And I should add that due to the affordable prices and the diversity of the performers, this was a really diverse crowd across pretty much every aspect of diversity. Those of you who live in Greater Boston know that this is extraordinarily rare around here, and I commend everybody involved in this promotion for making a place where people get suplexed onto their heads into a safe space for everyone. No one was excluded. Queen heel Paris Van Dale decided to pick on one of the staffers named Spike, and I heard gasps of surprise when the androgynous-presenting Spike ripped their shirt off to reveal a sports bra beneath. (I don’t know how Spike identifies, but it doesn’t matter inside the ring!)

This, of course, is what theater, and for that matter, all art, should be about: breaking down barriers and creating a place where everyone belongs. More popular theater! Please!

#review #theater #wrestling

I also missed a couple of other matches—my friend Greg informed me that the heels were winning everything—and arrived just in time for….

…a contract negotiation. I’ve seen this gimmick on AEW before, and I assume they do it on WWE shows as well, and all I have to say to all wrestling promoters is this. This is boring as shit. A bunch of guys yakety-yakking for 20 MINUTES about what they’re going to do in 2 weeks is not entertaining.

And listen—I know there is a diehard contingent of Chaotic fans who go to every match and pay to stream the ones they don’t go to, but I think it’s safe to say I’ve been to more shows than the majority of the audience, and I do not give a single shit about who’s in what faction or whether The Unit is getting back together or whatever the fuck. Boring. Bad. I really would have been much happier if they’d skipped this part and let us out 20 minutes early.

A good thing about local wrestling promotions is that they don’t have to emulate the worst elements of the big-time promotions. I have no idea why Chaotic is doing this. I wish it would stop.

Okay, back to wrestling. (Finally! and I only went on for 2 paragraphs!). It was definitely the night for the heels as heel Paris Van Dale inexplicably beat the incredibly talented and athletic Flip Gordon. (Flip does a lot of flips. He’s great. He said he’s leaving independent wrestling—I hope this means he’s bound for The Show, because he’s got a big-time combination of charisma and ability.) Don’t get me wrong—Paris is fabulous, and has one of the best heel gimmicks I’ve ever seen. Basically she very much enjoys the attention that comes from being champion but is not particularly interested in wrestling. It’s great. Honestly the only thing I think she could improve is dealing with the hecklers.

There was a tag team match where God’s Greatest Creation beat Shot to the Heart. This was fun because one of the guys from God’s Greatest Creation had a large contingent of family and friends there, so there was a lot of crowd energy. Shot to the Heart, featuring fan favorite Love Doug, whose mullet is a thing of beauty, lost, and Doug accidentally tossed his shirt into the chandelier.

JT Dunn squared off against Trigga the OG, and it was a pretty good match that turned into a great match when friends and teammates of each wrestler stormed the ring and brought the action into the crowd and the ring—Chase Del Monte and the Broken Unit attacked the security guys, and lots was happening in the back of the room that I couldn’t see very well. I’ll tell you what I could see, though—Shannon Levangie diving into a crowd of guys from atop a 12-foot ladder. This was some spectacular shit, and I was really glad I got to see it.

I think Trigga deserves better than the jobber role he’s been cast in. He’s a really good actor and sells all the feud stuff really well, and he’s a good wrestler as well. I wish he’d get a chance at the spotlight. (I once watched him lose twice in the same night! Give the guy a break!)

The main event was Mecca vs. Ricky Holiday for the championship. Mecca was great—he played the coked-up madman to perfection. He’s a fantastic heel because he’s such a good actor. You never get the sense that he’s pretending to be an asshole. (Maybe he’s not pretending, but I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt). This one was a really good match that featured Mecca bullying the refs a lot until he was driven from the ring by the surprise return of Aaron “Evil Gay” Rourke!

He’s one of my favorites, so I was sad he didn’t really wrestle but happy to see him back. He also hyped his match vs. Mecca in Tewksbury in 2 weeks, which is fine, but the whole evening took on the character of a trailer for the next event. I guess this is how you keep fans hooked, but, as my friend Greg said, “what about the event we’re actually at right now?”

#wrestling

Aside: I’m kind of obsessed with the fact that pro wrestling is heir to a long tradition of popular theater reaching back at least as far as the 16th century and the Commedia Dell’Arte. No, seriously. This does not mean that I crave respectability for pro wrestling. Horror movies are starting to get respectable, and the result is that we’re being deluged with overlong, artsy “horror” movies in which nothing happens for the first hour. But I do think we should recognize that this is one of the very few forms of professional theater that is affordable to regular people. If you want to see Fat Ham at the Huntington Theatre in Boston (and I do!), it’ll cost you 55 bucks for the cheapest tickets. Whereas if you want to go to the next Chaotic Wrestling show, 15 bucks will get you in the door.

And if you do go, you’ll get three hours of high quality entertainment. You’ll get the high-flying acrobatics of Aaron “Evil Gay” O’Rourke! You’ll get the gritty toughness of Mortar! The insufferable arrogance of Ricky Smokes! The preening of Paris Van Dale! And the awe-inspiring mullet of Love Doug! Great character work and great stage combat skills. There were several moments that made me go, “holy shit!” Yes, the outcome is scripted, but the athtletic talent on display is real and often breathtaking and even more impressive for the fact that they’re trying not to hurt their opponents while appearing to beat the bejesus out of them.

I laughed, I yelled, I came home hoarse, and I really enjoyed a couple of great plot twists. (Long-time heel Chase Del Monte somehow got relegated to waterboy status, but then he rebelled and threw in the towel for his boss, costing him the match!) And then there was this: Brian “The Mecca” Johnson came out and gave a long, rambling speech (I suspect it was stretched out because Shannon Levangie’s match seemed to have been canceled at the last minute, which was covered up by having someone hit her in the back of the head with a bouquet of roses with a metal pipe concealed inside.).

Anyway, so Mecca goes on and on about how he got off on the wrong foot by disrespecting everybody, and now he has this contract saying he can have a title shot at any moment, but he’s going to “be a man” and wait for the next event in two weeks.

Later, ring announcer Rich Palladino says he’s very proud of the inclusive nature of the company and calls out the fact that there are a couple of fans “dressed how they want to dress, and we think that’s great.” (I’ve seen these folks at previous shows—they are assigned male at birth people in full makeup and fabulous dresses.) He says every month is pride month at Chaotic wrestling.

At the time, I was like, “wow, it’s like maybe not cool that he called these fans out like that, even though he was telling everybody how welcome they are.” But then, after Brad Cashew defeated Ricky Smokes in a grueling championship match, he’s making the rounds, getting high fives from fans, and he goes over to the area where those folks were sitting, and a person in a dress and long wig punches him in the face! And then hops over the barricade! It’s Mecca! In a dress! He demands his title shot then and there, and, wearing a dress and full makeup, beats the shit out of the exhausted Cashew and claims the championship belt!

Folks, it was a beautiful moment. And the fact that the whole thing was set up with the fans who were mentioned from the ring made it even better.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the performers are friendly and accessible and will happily sell you their merch?

Though I know the speech about inclusivity was part of the Mecca storyline, it was also true. There were all kinds of people in the ring and in the crowd, and everybody was welcome. And the vibe never even approached the “maybe violence is brewing” vibe you get at a lot of alcohol-drenched sporting events. It was just a great night at the theater.

If you live in Greater Boston, I highly recommend you check out a Chaotic Wrestling show. And if you don’t live here, I recommend you check out your local wrestling promotion. These aren’t giant evil corporations—they’re small DIY enterprises running mainly on a love of the art form.

#Review #Wrestling