Stage : ‘Treasure’s’ Opening Production Wildly Uneven

It has been almost a year since theater from Pacific Rim nations made a splash at the Los Angeles Festival. Now that multiracial legacy is reflected in an ambitious performance festival dramatizing what it means to be an Asian-American in Los Angeles.

“Treasure in the House,” at Highways in Santa Monica, is a monthlong celebration of Pacific/Asian-American artists, with 30 actors and writers involved in two different performance pieces each week through mid-September.

The festival began with four solo works by local artists in the segment “Across the Waters” last weekend. The production was wildly uneven, opening with a strong first act, particularly from writer-performer Han Ong, but falling flat in the second act.

Highways was packed, but the Asian-American community did not dominate the audience. Festival curator Dan Kwong (who is Chinese-American and Japanese-American) appears to have his work cut out for him in his goal to more strongly attract Asian-American theatergoers to performance art.

Although rough in spots, the festival is an eye opener even when it’s self-conscious (Dennis Phun’s unwise mix of personal Vietnam horror stories framed by dumb stand-up comedy) or abstract and fuzzy (Rika Ohara’s technically seductive takeoff on Tokyo Rose lacked a clear point of view). But, taken together, the artists jogged memories of the impact made last fall at the L.A. Fringe Festival by the multiracial Kumu Kahua theater company of Hawaii, where, again, racial identities were under attack.

Of course these themes also have been dramatized by the East-West Players, and, more recently, by the AsianAmerican Theatre Project at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. That LATC group will perform at the festival this Friday and Saturday under the direction of its artistic head, Shishir Kurup.

Meanwhile, in “Across the Waters,” Kurup uncorked a funny monologue on a newcomer’s crisis of language, bringing a bizarre spin to his personal odyssey as a bemused immigrant born in Bombay, raised in East Africa and plopped into the streets of L.A.

But the night belonged to Ong (born and raised in the Philippines of Chinese parents), who extrapolated his fear “of (racially) disappearing.” Ong’s an excellent writer, and his monologue, shimmering in its delivery, was bedazzling as he used the Surrealist painter Magritte, likening the painter’s imagery of indistinguishable businessmen in bowlers to his own “living billboard of discontent.”

Future material, five new shows, will deal with women (including the well-known Jude Narita) and men (including a Korean-Irishman known by the single moniker of Arjuna).

“Treasure in the House,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, Wednesdays, Aug. 28 and Sept. 4 and 11 and Fridays and Saturdays every weekend, 8:30 p.m. Ends Sept. 14. $10. (213) 453-1755.