Elizardi Castro makes case for clean comedy in ‘Puerto Rico’

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Elizardi Castro looked to Bill Cosby for his comedy and storytelling inspiration for his one-man show "Made in Puerto Rico."

Updated: June 23, 2011 12:24AM

Elizardi Castro was born in Puerto Rico but from the age of 9 grew up in the suburbs of New York City. Summers were spent in his homeland visiting relatives.

It was a cultural dichotomy that didn’t sit well with his younger self.

“There weren’t a lot of Puerto Ricans in the suburbs, and just when I’d start to fit in, I would leave for the summer,” Castro recalled. “That dual identity messed with my head for years.”

Castro has used this memory as the jumping-off point for his one-man show, “Made in Puerto Rico,” a running commentary on what it means to be Puerto Rican and American, now playing at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. He has become fluent at taking his family and his culture apart — in humorous ways.

Not the proverbial “funny kid,” Castro took a roundabout way to comedy. As the son of an engineer and a social worker, he was pushed to a career in law, a pursuit his parents deemed “one step above” their careers.

“I was raised with the mentality that education was first and foremost,” Castro said. “The arts weren’t even recognized in my house.”

However, the comedy seed was planted when a teenage Castro watched a Bill Cosby television special with his father.

“I had never seen my father laugh so hard,” Castro said. “I became enthralled with the idea of making him laugh even harder.”

Castro also admired Cosby’s “sense of storytelling and his clean material.”

“Comedy seemed so empowering,” he said. “I wanted to find the humor in everything.”

But other than the occasional family gathering, it would be years before Castro took comedy seriously as a career. He graduated from college, went to law school and worked as a criminal defense lawyer in Florida for six years. Looking back now, he realizes it was the “performance aspect of the job” that he loved.

“I loved the adrenaline of litigating in court in front of a jury,” Castro said. “But the pressure gets to you. You have to cut your emotions off and be numb to it. But I found my emotions made me the attorney I was. I started to wear out and decided to walk away.”

Castro, who now lives in Chicago, says it’s important for him to follow Cosby’s example and have a show with material and language any age can enjoy.

“I write my material assuming my grandmother and parents are in the audience,” Castro, 38, said. “It actually forces you to be more creative, more expressive, which is second nature to me.”

Selling his new career to his parents took some time. At first, they thought it was “quirky,” Castro said. The second show they attended was a sellout, and they thought someone else was on the bill with him.

“That’s when it hit them that this is bigger than simply telling stories,” Castro said. “That people were actually relating to the material.”

And his father is quite enjoying his quasi-celebrity status as a character in the piece.

“They have both loosened up so much because of the show,” Castro said, with a laugh. “I would never have anticipated that.”

Someday, Castro hopes to bring the show home to New York. He holds onto John Leguizamo’s one-man shows as inspiration.

“I would love to take that torch and run with it,” Castro said. “In the meantime, I’ll keep writing and performing and providing a different voice.”

♦ “Made in Puerto Rico” opens March 25 and continues through May 1 at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green. For tickets ($15), call (312) 733-6000.