A wrestling match in a violent ring of steeotypesr

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Someone had to replace Jesse 'The Body' Ventura in the ring.

At the beginning of The 9th Annual World Weight Wrestling Blood EXXXtravaganza, the blue gym mats on the stage are bare and smell vaguely of sweat. By the end of the play, the mats are covered with whipped cream, fake blood, and other sticky substances. It's the messy result of a messy production.

The EXXXtravaganza, conceived and directed by Jim Hart, DRA '99, is staged as a three-part television broadcast of WWF Wrestlemania. Three wrestling matches are punctuated by amusing fake commercial breaks for products like the Extendo penis stretcher. Subtlety is not this production's strong point.

The play opens as the ring announcer brings the contestants in for the first match. In one corner, the "good guy," Backhaired Bob the Animal Cannibal (Rob Wootak Devaney, DRA '00), wears a leather suit that bulges at the crotch. His coach, Dr. Judeas Fundamentally Righteous (Dr. James Wolfgang Hart I, a.k.a. the director), stands with Cannibal, shouting Bible-babble to fire up his warrior. In the other corner, Rectal Randy (Eevill Eric Brown, DRA '00), a cartoonish gay man, wears pink tights and lisps like there's no tomorrow.

They fight, with the hammy commentators (Adrian "Rock Bottom" LaTourelle, DRA'99, and Bruce "The Undertaker" Miller, DRA '99) spewing forth the play-by-play. And if that wasn't enough high-drama action for the crowd, there are audience plants stationed throughout the Cabaret to whoop it up.

The excitement, however, is just not there. Sure, there's all the requisite body slamming and crotch grabbing (this play seems to have quite a penis obsession), but it's all fairly predictable. Pro-wrestling fans will have a ball with this stuff, but that's not what this play is really about.

What this play desperately wants to be is a commentary on American media culture's obsession with violence. But it comes across as a circus of flat stereotypes. When Rectal Randy utters crafted-to-shock lines like "I'm gonna rip you a new asshole," you want to cringe, embarrassed at the obviousness of the joke and the sheer offensiveness of the stereotype. The problem with the EXXXtravaganza is that it just can't figure out who its audience is, and it caters to the violence-obsessed mentality that it attempts to criticize.

During the Animal Cannibal-Rectal Randy match, the audience cheers on the Animal in what is supposed to be a mock-homophobic gesture. But the irony of this comes across as simple homophobia. The message is supposed to be that we Americans often root for the wrong "good guy," but the Animal Cannibal, with Judeas on his side, wins the match anyway. It's just another indication that the play wavers in its ironic message.

The real audience does laugh at wrestler names like Arkansas Uncle Pump Kin (Hart) and Chi Duck Dung Shadow Mind Warrior (John-Luc Kwon IV, DRA '00). But the characters never go beyond these stereotypical conceptions—Arkansas Uncle and Chi Duck look and act exactly like you would think: a backwoods redneck and a Chinese master of metaphysical powers. Nothing more. They fight. Chi wins. The audience plants boo him because the American, "the good guy," has lost the match.

But the true audience is left wondering what to make of this tale of good versus evil. And after the second match the two commentators simply tell the audience what to make of it. They explain in detail the allegory of Judeas (a symbol for Judas, of course) and every other character. It's unnecessary and insulting, making the audience feel as dull-witted as a real WWF crowd.

The play finishes up with a match between two even less subtle characters. Another Asian stereotype, She Who Dances With Many Beams of Light (Gerri Kum-Kok, DRA '00), matches up against Miss Ima Mann (Paul Spadone, DRA '99), a drag queen wrestler who enters to the tune of Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady"—how many countless times have you seen that gag before?

The performances, in the context of the constraining script, are admirable. Hart and Devaney's characters are fun to laugh at, and LaTourelle and Miller are an accurate send-up of fight commentators. The ensemble looks like it's having a good time, but any real chemistry is prevented by EXXXtravaganza's disjointed structure and inconsistent direction. It's not that this is a bad play—it's a lot of fun at times. It even made two old ladies sitting in the back laugh out loud. But mostly the audience just stared in confusion and awe at the spectacle.

EXXXtravaganza really wants to be a satire of violence and stereotypes, but instead it's just an orgy of both. As a spectacle it's fun, and its 45-minute length gives it a throwaway quality that lets it cleanly escape any aspirations toward a deeper meaning.

The most genuinely funny moment in the play comes when the commentators pause to congratulate former WWF star Jesse "The Body" Ventura for winning the gubernatorial election in Minnesota on Tues., Nov. 4. The thought of Captain America from The Running Man governing a state is a truly funny and scary slice of strangeness—and exactly what the EXXXtravaganza struggles to be.

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