Latino Troupe With a ‘Mission’ : Sainthood for Father Serra just one target of Teatro Campesino spinoff

Amid the piety and the protests, about the only thing missing so far from the emotional campaign to elevate to sainthood Father Junipero Serra, “the Apostle of California,” has been a sense of humor.

No more. In a biting, multimedia revue appropriately titled “The Mission,” three young Latino comedians calling themselves “Culture Clash” are taking an irreverent look at the 18th-Century Franciscan who founded nine missions in the state. The group is scheduled to perform scenes from “The Mission” Oct. 30 at the Los Angeles Theater Center, as part of a benefit for LATC’s Latino Theatre Lab.

Culture Clash is now a part of El Teatro Campesino, which be began as a guerrilla theater group during the Delano farm workers strike and is this year celebrating its 25th anniversary season. The marriage of the two organizations came about largely through the

recommendation of Luis Valdez, Teatro’s artistic director and the director of “La Bamba,” Culture Clash member Richard Salinas said. “The Mission” was honed and reshaped during lab productions at Teatro Campesino’s headquarters in San Juan Bautista, and in high schools and colleges in the Los Angeles area. Culture Clash represents “the cutting edge of fresh, new, Latino comic genius,” Valdez said.

“I don’t think we would exist without all having the training and background of the theatro,” said Salinas, who worked in various Teatro productions before forming Culture Clash. “Our style is very Teatro Campesino.”

Members of 5 year-old Culture Clash live in San Francisco’s Mission district. Salinas, 29, and Herbert Siguenza, 30, are the children of Salvadoran immigrants and have college degrees in broadcasting and graphic arts, respectively; Richard Montoya, the 29-year-old son of the poet and artist Jose Montoya, spent 4 years with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Culture Clash characterizes “The Mission” as a brown--rather than a black--comedy and, true to the spirit of Lenny Bruce, there is something to offend just about everyone, starting before the house lights go down. A television set on the empty stage runs a silent tape composed of some of the more offensive depictions of Latinos from films like “Treasure of Sierra Madre,” “The Wild Bunch,” “Three Amigos,” as well as Donald Duck and Speedy Gonzales cartoons. The offstage musical score runs from overfamiliar selections from “Carmen” and “Bolero” to the Grateful Dead’s “Mission in the Rain” and themes from films like “The Emerald Forest” and Roland Joffe’s “The Mission”--to which the revue bears no resemblance.

The television is turned off by a stage hand and the lights are dimmed. Siguenza, dressed in a Franciscan habit and posed like one of the many Serra statues, is bathed in a small pool of light, a disembodied voice solemnly intones the achievements of the “Apostle of California” who was beatified last fall by Pope John Paul II. Then the kicker:

“One man . . . one vision . . . 1 million Indios wiped out by murder, disease and torture. And at least five known cases of the dreaded jock itch. Father Serra loved his little savages. No Indian was buried before his time.”

In an interview, group members acknowledged that they chose the Serra sainthood issue primarily as a vehicle to showcase the group’s more contemporary work, at a time when the San Francisco newspapers were full of the controversy in the wake of Pope John Paul II’s visit to San Francisco and Carmel, where Serra founded missions.

“It was too ripe to ignore,” said Richard Montoya. “But I thought we should be a little careful. The parallels are there, but we are not experiencing genocide in the American theater and comedy scene. We can’t suggest that, but we can suggest the cultural imperialism of Spain and Julio Iglesias . . . We couldn’t compromise our theatrical style--we had to keep it funny. But we also had to do our homework and I think that even though we do handle it in an irreverent sort of way, the Indians come out a little bit smarter.”

Following the opening segment the priest disappears for much of the evening, except for a priceless bit at the end of the first act about a “Taqueria Serra,” wherein Siguenza explains the difference between pollo the food and polo the game to an Anglo customer. Culture Clash then proceeds to take a withering look at the way European and Anglo “civilization” has influenced--sometimes destroying but more frequently diluting--native American and Chicano cultures. Stereotypes and ethnic prejudices are favorite topics and Culture Clash manages to touch most, if not all of the bases, up to and including “official language” campaigns and Anglo resentment over undocumented workers winning the lottery. At one point, a lowrider pulls up to a limo and the homeboy driver asks to borrow some Grey Poupon.

“I’m a fan of theirs,” said Rudolfo Acuna, professor of Chicano studies at Cal State Northridge, where the group has performed “The Mission.” “I have nothing but respect for them. They’re irreverent. I like that. I like their message--it’s a biting critique of the society. These guys come out of a ‘movement’ route. They’re with the movement all the time. What they do is a departure from the Paul Rodriguez stuff,” he said, referring to the stand-up comedian who starred in the ill-fated “A.K.A. Pablo” series and recently hosted “The Dating Game.” Rodriguez, Acuna said, “was never part of the activist group that wanted to change society. Culture Clash is.”

Most recently “The Mission” has been playing to audiences of 50 people a night in the Asian American Theatre Center, a small San Francisco theater above a pizzeria, but Culture Clash appears to be nearing a breakthrough. Between runs of the low budget production the group has opened for Ruben Blades concerts in Los Angeles and Chicago. They’ve taped an eight-minute segment for public television, which is scheduled to be included in a nationally televised series “Comedy Tonight” in the fall, and earlier this month they were featured on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” Upcoming profiles are scheduled for California and Mother Jones magazines.

Culture Clash’s humor is angry and often political, but not doctrinaire. While most of the satire is directed to the dominant European culture, the left and the counterculture come in for their share of jibes. “Politically correct” humor and commitment to La Communidad are targets--”I was a Chicano before you were!” shouts Montoya at one point. Members challenge each other about selling out to make it in the mainstream one minute and audition for a fast food commercial dressed as a life-sized taco the next. Jackson Browne, Holly Near, the San Francisco Mime Troupe come in for some nudges, if not knocks, and one bit involving a three-headed, Latin American folk singer at a benefit is priceless.

Before the night is over, those who also take hits--some of them loving--include Edward James Olmos, Fernando Valenzuela, Geraldo Rivera, Rita Moreno, Jerry Garcia, Carlos Castaneda, Cesar Chavez, Freddy Fender, Erik Estrada, Richie Valens, Linda Ronstadt’s Mariachi band, Che Guevara, Al Pacino in “Scarface,” Carlos Santana, Gloria Estefan, Los Lobos, and, of course, Julio Iglesias and Barry Manilow.

Oddly enough, considering the length of this list, neither Paul Rodriguez nor Cheech Marin nor the late Freddy Prinze--probably the best known Latino comedians of the last two decades--are mentioned. They don’t talk about Rodriguez, Siguenza said, “because he’s a contemporary and hasn’t made his mark yet.” Montoya adds that “the targets that we choose have to be good targets for satire, for parody.” But they are not fans of Rodriguez. “If you listen to his humor,” Salinas says, “it’s really a lot of stereotypes that he does, which is easier, you get the easiest laughs that way.”

Frequently scatological, Culture Club’s own material is still uneven and occasionally rough around the edges. In an instant it can go from being silly, juvenile and parochial to being subtle, sophisticated and worldly.

A series of black-out sketches based on auditions the group has done for Anglo producers is similar to the one involving black actors in the film “Hollywood Shuffle.” They also spoof several well-known public service announcements on television, like the ubiquitous anti-drug message featuring eggs in a frying pan. Using storyboards, Montoya explains, “This is your brains . . . This is your brains on drugs . . . This is your brains on drugs with chorizos.” Siguenza gives a Latin twist to the famous United Negro College appeal, the one which recently tripped up Dan Quayle, by complaining that “a Mayan is a terrible thing to waste.”

Peppered with such wordplay, the evening is sometimes reminiscent of the old “Firesign Theater” in the demands it makes on the audience. There is a running gag--too complicated to summarize--involving the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and his German lover Frida Kahlo; a rap song in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Indians of Mexico; and a brief discourse on Bertolt Brecht’s “fourth wall.” At one point, the troupe--as tough gang members--begins a menacing chant of “Colors!!” which segues to a cheerful rendition of “De Colores.”

The gang material, performed with one of the largest boom boxes in captivity, is some of the most original of the evening, and Culture Clash members say it travels the best when the group plays in urban areas outside California, where audiences are unfamiliar with subjects like Father Serra and San Francisco politics. Salinas, Montoya and Siguenza--all raised in middle-class homes--pull off the extremely difficult task of spoofing the deadly serious phenomenon without approving of its effects or denigrating the individuals who are caught up in it. Montoya said that even gang members have told them how much they like the material because it so accurately satirizes people they recognize.

The gang bits work just as well in Detroit and Chicago as they do when Culture Clash plays East Los Angeles dates, Montoya said, and they went ahead with the material in Chicago even when nervous promoters asked them not to.

“Any time someone tells us not to do something--we do it,” said Montoya, whose one blue eye and one brown eye come in for a zinger about assimilation in “The Mission.” “As a comedy group, when you cut your teeth in Berkeley and San Francisco, and even the Off-Broadway thing we did at the Public Theater in New York, you really learn how to bring humor to these really sensitive issues, and to people who can easily get offended. At the same time, you can’t really please everybody.”

“We are poking fun,” Salinas said. “There is a lot of stupidity involved with the gangs. We pull out forks instead of knives, just showing how stupid it is. These guys are wasting their lives on the corner.”

In a grotesque piece of irony, Salinas’ own life was nearly wasted in the early hours of Sept. 7, when he tried to help a neighbor who was being beaten near his apartment in the Mission District. According to San Francisco police, Salinas and an actor friend from El Theatro saw a man being beaten and kicked by four other men. When Salinas shouted for the assailants to stop, the man being beaten escaped and ran to Salinas’ doorway for shelter. One of the assailants followed, pulling a shotgun from his coat and shooting Salinas in the chest, shouting “Now you’re involved.” Minutes before the incident, said Montoya, “We were talking about the cholo piece, the gang bit that we do, and the next instant Ric was hanging on for his life.”

Last week, following extensive surgery, Salinas was in stable condition and recovering from his wounds. Montoya said they hoped he would be well enough to perform in Los Angeles for the LATC benefit. If not, he said, one of the troupe’s former members would substitute. The shooting would not deter the group from addressing the issues of drugs, gangs and violence, Montoya said.

“It does make us look at our work,” he said of the incident. “But we won’t stop . . . I think we’ll eventually use it in our act.”

A night of Latino comedy, “Noche de Risa y Susto” (“Die Laughing”) will be presented Oct. 30 as a benefit for the Latino Theater Lab of the Los Angeles Theater Center. The event is scheduled for 8 p.m., at LATC, 514, S. Spring St., Los Angeles. For information: 627-6500. In addition to Culture Clash, the bill includes the Los Angeles-based irreverent theater troupe, Latins Anonymous, as well as other local comedians.