Your Honor: Cajardo Lindsey is both an esteemed judge and actor | John Moore

Cajardo Lindsey thinks it’s no big deal that he’s both a Colorado District Court judge and one of Denver’s most respected professional stage actors at the same time.

Overruled!

“Oh, it’s a very big deal,” said Tara Falk, who directs Lindsey in his starring role as the spectacularly damaged Jim Tyrone in Cherry Creek Theatre’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” – Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical sequel to his monumental “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

“All actors become used to doing five billion things at once, because that’s just the life,” Falk said. “But being a judge is not a side hustle.”

More like a first, second and third calling, all at once. Currently assigned to domestic-relations cases, Lindsey holds the fate of entire families in his well-considered hands. Before dashing off to the theater to leave his eviscerated guts on the stage in a grueling American masterpiece, Lindsey issues permanent orders in cases involving divorce, legal separation, annulment and child custody in Arapahoe and three other counties.

“Just consider the level of importance and the level of concentration, care and research that job requires,” Falk said. “But Cajardo makes it all work because, in everything he does, he just shows up in every way possible. He brings it all to the table – and then some.”

Lindsey started his legal career doing civil-defense work in 2002 and went on to serve as both Assistant City Attorney and Senior Deputy District Attorney for Denver. As if his story could get any more All-American, he was also captain of his football team at Miami University, got his law degree from Indiana U. and is now a married father of two.

“And so you might naturally think, ‘Well, he’s made it,’” Falk said. But he's still a Black man in America. It was being falsely accused of a crime in college, in fact, that compelled Lindsey to enter law school in the first place.   

When Lindsey was appointed to his judgeship in Colorado’s 18th District by Gov. Jared Polis in June 2021, Colorado Politics judicial reporter Michael Karlik said Lindsey “might be the closest thing Colorado now has to a celebrity judge,” given his impressive stage and screen resume that includes 17 TV and film credits, most recently appearing in Netflix's "Deadly Illusions.”

He’s appeared on all the biggest area stages, notably three productions with the Denver Center Theatre Company, along with the Arvada Center and Curious Theatre, where he is a company member. He has won acting awards from The Denver Post, Westword and the Colorado Theatre Guild.

The most significant work of Lindsey’s stage career has been in socially relevant plays ranging from the Arvada Center’s “A Raisin in the Sun” to Curious Theatre’s recent “Fireflies” playing a flawed reverend whose marriage is threatened after a 1963 church bombing.

While Lindsey is grateful for every role that comes his way, he is especially drawn to two kinds of acting opportunities. “Anything that deals with social-justice issues appeals to me,” he said. “And so do roles that traditionally have not been played by African American men.”

Roles like Jim Tyrone, who is based on O’Neill’s real-life hot mess of an Irish brother, Jamie, first immortalized as a tormented, alcoholic roustabout in “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” In the sequel, a now grown-up “Jim” has rented a hardscrabble corner of the Tyrones’ rundown Connecticut farm to  scheming Irishman Phil Hogan and his hardened daughter Josie, who secretly loves him. On this night, Jim is wracked with fresh guilt for having been too drunk to attend his mother’s funeral, and he has come to Josie seeking comfort from a kindred broken, misbegotten spirit.

Jim Tyrone is an unequivocally white character, based on the very real white brother of the Irish playwright. And when Falk attended “Fireflies” at Curious, she certainly saw a Black actor playing a quintessentially Black character. But what she really saw in Lindsey’s performance was Jim Tyrone: A crumbling shell of a man who just wants to be held. And then drink himself to death.

“I saw groundedness, specificity and an authenticity that just popped beyond belief,” Falk said. “I felt like I had just walked into the culmination of the entirety of this man’s work as an actor, all in this one piece. And I knew right then, ‘This is the only actor I want to play Jim Tyrone.”

Lindsey thought she was bonkers.

“I appreciate that she didn't care what color I am,” said Lindsey, who said yes to one of the greatest acting challenges of his life for one simple reason: “Because I have never been asked to play a role like that before,” he said. “What resonated strongly with me was the theme of forgiveness. I wanted to be a part of telling the story that you can, in some situations, tell someone your innermost, dirtiest dirt that you've ever done – and there's forgiveness available for you.”

In the rehearsals that followed, Falk said, “Never for one second did we drop the knowledge that, for us, Jim is a Black man and Josie (played by powerhouse co-star Emily Paton Davies) is a white woman.”

Falk says she had no intention of making a social statement by putting a Black man in the role of a landowner in 1923 Connecticut. But nonetheless, she has. Thrillingly. By flipping the racial script, this telling of “A Moon for the Misbegotten” shows a different power dynamic than even the playwright could have imagined. That’s not just one reason to see the 70-year-old play in 2023. It is the most compelling reason to see the play in 2023.

“Because I do a lot of plays that focus on social justice, you might get the misconception that all I can do is roles dealing with painful aspects of being African American in America – and that's not the case,” Lindsey said. “I do a lot of those roles, and I think that’s important. But the change I would like to see in casting today is just getting outside of what we think is normal.

“Yes, you might see me as Othello, or you can see me as Caliban in the Tempest,” he said of two Black Shakespeare characters. “But why not Macbeth? Why not Hamlet? Why not Richard III? I think it's only when we start to play those roles more that people can start to see beyond color.”

We’re living through a post-pandemic awakening where many arts organizations are trying to do better when it comes to representation on stage. “I just want theaters to fully consider all options,” Lindsey said. “I want them to consider the best actor for the role, not the best white actor or even the best Black actor.”

Every time a Colorado theater company sees Lindsey in a role previously reserved for white actors, he sees progress. Like when he played Sgt. Carlino in the Arvada Center's "Wait Until Dark." Paul Sheldon in "Misery" at Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden. Ross Gardiner in Cherry Creek Theatre’s “Visiting Mr. Green.” But progress remains in short supply in a world where the recent police killing of Tyre Nichols hung over rehearsals like an unspoken moon for the misbegotten.

“I would say my reaction to that, whether I was a judge or not, is that I was heartbroken,” Lindsey said. “I couldn't bring myself to watch the video because I couldn't understand the story behind it. Don't get me wrong. We've seen this over and over again, but that doesn't mean I have an understanding of it. In many ways, it feels like an alternate universe. I'm left with no words, especially as a father with sons. I mean, anything can happen and you can find yourself in a bad situation. But I'm not here to bad-talk the police because I have several very close friends who I believe do the job how it should be done. There are bad everythings. There are bad attorneys. There are bad police officers. There are bad actors.”

In fact, Lindsey was particularly drawn to the fact that Jim Tyrone is also an actor. Here, a Black actor. “Can you name one Black man who was a star on Broadway in 1920?” he said. 

One of the few was “Ziegfeld Follies” star Bert Williams, a man now fully intertwined with Lindsey’s heart. Lindsey is developing a screenplay in partnership with Denver Film called “Blackface: The Story of Nobody.” It’s based on Williams, who was one of the most popular and highly paid entertainers of the vaudeville era – mostly by playing degrading roles in blackface. In his film, Bert gets the opportunity to perform Hamlet on Broadway – just as Lindsey wishes more Black actors could do today.

“If I’m Jim Tyrone in 1920, what I do is probably minstrel work,” he said. “And how proud am I of that? I am probably making money, but I'm degrading myself. I’m not accepted in New York. I have to go out to this rural area of Connecticut to be truly accepted. I do love Josie, and why is that? Because she’s not only accepting of me, she's forgiving. Where else would I be able to find that kind of acceptance – and not be lynched?”

This is an old story that’s never been told quite this way before. And only because when Falk saw the judge performing in “Fireflies,” she saw a man who simply wanted to be held.

“I’m just very grateful because I wanted the best person for the role,” Falk said, “and I got him.”

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