Word: leguizamo
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Vida and her friend Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes, another stud star who looks swell in Dynel) are on the road with a third dragster, Chi Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo, who is not so much a queen as a saucy serving wench). They stop for repairs in a nowhere town where all the men are brutes or louts, and all the women worn out trying to survive. That these Dust Bowl wallflowers are played by some of the most sophisticated actresses around (Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner and Melinda Dillon) suggests role playing weirder than any mere gender switching...
...Sherry Glaser, Claudia Shear, Barnaby Spring). Some play a multitude of characters, some just one, and several basically play themselves. Some, like Spalding Gray, who in January finished a return engagement on Broadway and is coming back in June, devote themselves principally to the solo form. Others, like John Leguizamo, who was named last season's best performer off-Broadway for his Hispanic family portrait Spic-O-Rama and who appeared in the films Carlito's Way and Super Mario Bros., seem less exclusively committed to the stage...
Some soloists, like Spalding Gray or Claudia Shear, play themselves. Some, like Irene Worth impersonating Edith Wharton, re-create celebrities past or ) present. Some, like Sherry Glaser or John Leguizamo, portray a whole family and achieve miracles of transformation...
...John Leguizamo gave himself an acting tour de force as all six members of a troubled Hispanic family, from nerdy schoolboy Miggy to bone-dumb Desert Storm veteran Crazy Willie to their amiably lowlife mother Gladyz, in hilarious monologues that moved beyond performance art to become a true and deeply moving play. The production by Chicago's Goodman Theater transferred to off- Broadway...
Even more impressive than Leguizamo's acting is his writing. He has moved beyond performance art, which even at its best (Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Bogosian, Anna Deavere Smith) tends to be mere journalistic observation of relevant types, and has produced a true play. Each monologue adds depth to a group portrait of a family in pain, the members isolated in their individual differences yet always plausibly connected. Leguizamo turns stereotypes into rounded, real people and brings them under one roof...