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First Stage Theatre Gets Into the Ring With Lucha Libre

Professional wrestling is nothing if not theatrical. There are good guys to cheer and bad guys to boo, and good and evil fight it out in the ring every night. When you talk about the Mexican tradition oflucha libre, in which the wrestlers wear colorful masks that they seldom remove - even in their real lives, the level of theatricality jumps even higher.

It is this world that Milwaukee playwright Alvaro Saar Rios has set his newest work. Luchadora! is the story of a young girl who sets out on a journey to discover more about her Mexican American heritage, thanks to the discovery of a pink mask in her grandmother’s briefcase. And it's based on Saar Rios' real grandmother, who was a huge lucha libre fan.

"What if the reason why my grandmother liked it so much was because she was a masked wrestler?" Saar Rios wondered. "What would that story be like?"

 

First Stage Children’s Theatre's artistic director Jeff Frank says the entire story appealed to him, especially the part about the masks.

"The idea of the masks we wear and the different identities and questions of identity, and who we are and the physical masks we might wear, or the masks we put on for other people to see are just really powerful things for us to explore," Frank said.

Milwaukee Magazine has a feature on the play and its connection to Milwaukee's Mexican Heritage as well.

And, if you're curious about what a real lucha libre match looks like, the video below was filmed in Chicago in 2012. The two wrestlers are sons of two of the greatest wrestlers in lucha libre - El Santo and Blue Demon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLm-bc7_EEs

Bonnie North
Bonnie joined WUWM in March 2006 as the Arts Producer of the locally produced weekday magazine program Lake Effect.