Locally created play brings Mexican lucha libre culture to the Dallas Arts District

UPDATED at 8:13 a.m. on July 16, 2021: This story has updated references to the production’s fight coordinator, a luchador who wrestles under the name Aski the Mayan Warrior. It also reflects a change in the cast.

Son of a stuntwoman, Jeff Colangelo found his way to theater through what he calls “cultures of violence,” like professional wrestling. Bullied and friendless in grade school, Chris Ramirez glimpsed greater possibilities in the larger-than-life figures of Monday Night Raw, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“He looked like a superhero in the flesh. He was The Rock,” says Ramirez, who grew up to be an actor. “I was hooked from that moment on.”

“Fighting is a love language, an important means of communication,” says Colangelo, a stuntman, fight choreographer and artistic director of the physically oriented Prism Movement Theater.

The two Dallas stage artists have written a play, Lucha Teotl, set in the parallel world of lucha libre, a freestyle wrestling form that began developing in Mexico in the late 19th century and bears similarities to the American pro wrestling that captivated Colangelo and Ramirez as children.

Since the 1940s, when a mysterious silver-masked wrestler named El Santo galvanized lucha libre by winning an eight-man battle royal, luchadores have been central to Mexican culture, even becoming the stars of movie franchises.

One distinction from American wrestling is the wearing of masks, hiding a performer’s real identity behind a persona. It’s a sacred practice that can be traced back to the Aztec culture that dominated parts of Mexico and Central America from the 14th to the 16th centuries. The luchador characters created for Lucha Teotl (Fight God) are based on Aztec gods.

“It’s a chance to dig into mythologies and deities that are foreign to most people,” says Colangelo, whose troupe is producing the play as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project, an annual series of productions by smaller local arts groups. “This is Prism’s biggest, most ambitious show yet.”

An Orlando native who moved to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University, Colangelo approached Ramirez about the project in 2018. It was around the time Ramirez was joining the acting company of Dallas Theater Center in whose building, the Wyly Theatre, Lucha Teotl will have its run starting this week. Last fall, they wrote the script.

“Our goal is to bring the world of lucha libre to a whole new audience that doesn’t know they love it yet,” says Ramirez, a Dallas native and Mexican-American who played with Mexican-wrestling toys as a kid without knowing much about the culture from which they sprang.

One interesting twist is the play doesn’t examine the real people behind the luchador characters, as you might expect. Instead, Colangelo and Ramirez have crafted a dramatic pro-wrestling storyline that unfolds over several months entirely in the ring.

It’s as if the audience were following the stylized exploits of these outsized personalities on a lucha libre show or at a live match. Theatergoers are encouraged to bring signs supportive of their favorite performers, cheer them on and boo their opponents. Besides the luchadores, the characters include a master of ceremonies and a pair of commentators.

The main plot involves a tag team made up of veteran wrestler Coyol (Luis Palomino) and the young upstart Huitzi (Dylan Cantu). They are trying to win a championship together despite coming from rival Moon- and Sun-god families with history.

The nine-member cast is a mix of actors, wrestlers and martial artists, including Ramirez’s older sister Jennifer, who eventually caught the wrestling bug, too. A trained librarian, she performs around D-FW as Paige Turner, whose signature move is called the “Dewey Decimator.”

As a teen, she was struck by the size and muscularity of the female wrestler Chyna and also noticed the drama that surrounded her performances. She started going with her sister to shows at the Sportatorium, Dallas’ wrestling palace from the 1930s to the 1990s, and enrolled in a one-day wrestling camp at 15.

“It was my first taste,” she says. “The next day, I felt like I was in a car accident.”

In its classic period, American pro wrestling was broken down into regional territories overseen by the National Wrestling Alliance. Today, regional wrestling matches are organized by independent promoters who hire freelance performers.

Lucha libre in the U.S. operates in a similar way. One of the local figures is Aski the Mayan Warrior. The man behind the mask, who in the sport’s tradition prefers to remain anonymous, is acting as the fight coordinator for Lucha Teotl.

Named after a popular Mexican music group, Aski was his way out of a life as a young “troublemaker,” he says. Now 40, he’s been a luchador for 20 years, traveling around the country and to Mexico and Canada to perform.

Born in León, Guanajuanto, he moved to Dallas with his family when he was 8. He thought he was going to become a soccer player, but after high school he started training to be a luchador. Six years ago, his business partner Roberto Mercado created a comic book series and graphic novel around the Aski character, which led to an independent film starring the luchador.

Aski’s good-guy persona and advocacy for ordinary people has segued nicely with the man behind the mask’s work outside the ring as a consultant and social media marketing guru.

“I love the sport,” he says, “the idea that I can entertain an audience and take them on this road of highs and lows, allowing them to forget whatever troubles are in their lives for two hours. The first words from my mentor were, ‘You have to have heart because it’s going to be painful at times.’ Twenty years later, I’m here. I proved everybody wrong.”

Details

July 15-24 at Wyly Theatre, 2400 Flora St. $29.50. attpac.org. prismco.org.