A labor of (too much) love

What becomes a legend most? It depends on the legend. If one is doing a Hollywood tell-all, the more salacious details revealed about the legend’s life, the better. However, if one is approaching a revered historical figure like Cesar Chavez, respect is certainly understandable, if not requisite.

Actor-activist Ed Begley Jr., who co-produced, directed and wrote “Cesar and Ruben,” a musical about the life of United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, has approached his subject with his heart firmly on his sleeve. The piece, which incorporates covers of songs by such rock and pop luminaries as Sting, Santana, Enrique Iglesias and Ruben Blades, brims with good intentions and bracing moral outrage.

Begley, who worked with Chavez and his United Farm Workers on pesticide issues and served as a pallbearer at Chavez’s funeral, undertook this project with the blessings of the Chavez family to honor the 10th anniversary of Chavez’s death. His veneration and affection for his subject are evident.

However, when veneration is the primary function of a play, it is more hagiography than a living, breathing work of theater. Begley dangerously assumes his audience will enter the theater at the same pitch of awe he so obviously feels. His heartfelt but hugely problematic play fails to supply the necessary dramatic pulse that would bind his viewers in a genuine emotional connection.

That’s primarily a problem of emphasis. By lending undue import to supernumerary characters, Begley critically unbalances his plot. The play opens just after Chavez (strong-voiced Roberto Alcaraz) has arrived in the afterlife. His first stop is a way station, a sort of heavenly roadhouse, complete with a mystical Wurlitzer that cues flashbacks from Chavez’s life. The genial host who escorts Chavez through his own past is Ruben Salazar (Tony D’Arc), the TV newsman and Los Angeles Times columnist who was killed in 1970 by a police tear gas canister while covering a Chicano rally.

Begley’s conceit, and it’s a thin one, is that Chavez must reexamine his past before he can move through the next “door.” So must Salazar, who, despite D’Arc’s thoroughly engaging performance, functions here as little more than a framing device. And not to put too fine a theological point on things, but why is Chavez caught in this limbo? The precise reasons for Chavez’s agonized reassessment are never made clear.

Begley’s staging wavers between the sprightly and the unwieldy, and the songs, though beautiful and beautifully rendered, are largely interstitial to the action -- or is it the action that is interstitial to the songs? Also problematic is Naylor (game, passionate Edward Laurence Albert), an archetypal Anglo baddie who occasionally indulges in self-recrimination, Begley’s all-too-obvious attempts to flesh out a transparent stereotype. There’s that problem of emphasis again. Begley seems heaven-bent on being evenhanded and politically correct, even with his villains.

*

‘Cesar and Ruben’

Where: El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood

When: Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays 3 and 7 p.m.

Ends: April 27

Price: $25 to $35

Contact: (213) 480-3232

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes