Culture Clash’s satire is razor sharp
Chicano troupe is spot on with timely show ‘(Still) in America’ at Berkekey Rep
The flag projected upon the stage set before the latest show at Berkeley Repertory Theatre says a lot to begin with. It’s a version of the U.S. flag, but with irregular bright multicolored stripes like a serape. As flags go, it’s a distinct improvement. San Francisco-bred, now Los Angeles-based Latino comedy trio Culture Clash offers a distinctly multicultural view of the United States in “Culture Clash (Still) in America,” but it’s a multiculturalism under attack. Included among the show’s many vignettes based on people the troupe interviewed all over the country are a couple of heartbreaking scenes about migrants who had their children taken away by Border Patrol agents. Even in the most comedic scenes there’s often a grim undercurrent of the anti-immigrant and ethnic tensions stoked by what currently passes for political discourse in this country. The show is an update of “Culture Clash in AmeriCCa,” a show that originally premiered at Berkeley Rep in 2002. A good portion of the characters here have been carried over from the earlier version, but with updated references for a nation much transformed in the interim. Many of the pieces are tremendously funny, others tragic and sobering, and not a few are both at the same time. Formed in the Mission District in the 1980s, Culture Clash has been a repeat visitor to Berkeley Rep, bringing a contemporary take on Aristophanes’ “The Birds” in 1998 and the world premiere of “Culture Clash’s Zorro in Hell” in 2006. But it’s been too long, and there’s an air of celebration to their return. “(Still) in America” is as terribly funny as it is tightly constructed. You can tell that this is material the troupe has honed sharp as can be over time while also updating it to keep it feeling fresh. The characters offer a riveting mix of touching portraits and piercing satire, and the performances are superb. Richard Montoya, Ricardo Salinas and Herbert Siguenza all play a dizzying array of roles, occasionally also showing up as some version of themselves interviewing the other characters. Montoya soberly embodies a Muslim man rhapsodizing about Philz Coffee, a bewildered and desperate undocumented immigrant and a bone-weary lawyer struggling to reunify immigrant parents with the children ripped from their arms upon capture. Siguenza stunningly portrays a Cuban-American trans woman in San Francisco, an Alabama preacher with a bone to pick about traditional depictions of Jesus’ ethnicity and a fiery homeless poet and Vietnam vet. In one unforgettable sequence, Salinas plays a Puerto Rican native New Yorker offering a hilarious primer on how different nationalities of Latinos dance salsa. Director Lisa Peterson (“The Good Book,” “It Can’t Happen Here,” “Mother Courage”) makes the assemblage of distinct scenes with distinct tones feel seamless in her tight and fast-moving staging. Only once or twice is it even close to conspicuous that of course one or two of the performers have to disappear to be thoroughly transformed in Carolyn Mazuca’s delightful costumes with impressive speed. Christopher Acebo’s set proves nicely versatile, opening up to reveal an array of embedded items on display from bikes and trikes to milk jugs and watering cans. Lighting designer Tom Ontiveros’ projections transform the space with montages both humorous and heartrending. Composer and sound designer Paul James Prendergast laces scenes with perfectly apt accompaniment like a Spanish version of “White Rabbit.” Siguenza and Salinas are a pricelessly chatty Florida couple who can’t stop blithely saying appalling things, and they have a touching scene as Filipino and Ugandan immigrants excited to become new U.S. citizens. Montoya and Salinas bring the house down as two old Berkeley hippie women kvetching about losing their revolutionary cred in a world that’s moved on. Culture Clash, meanwhile, demonstrates once again that its keen satirical eye and voice is not just as relevant and attuned to the present moment as ever, but critically needed right now.