O.C. THEATER : Latinos’ Act Is Based on Experience

In the late 1980s, future members of the Latins Anonymous comedy quartet gave up complaining about the kinds of roles--maids, gardeners, gang members, drug dealers and other stereotypes--commonly offered to Latino actors.

Instead of abandoning their craft, these four frustrated, insulted actors and actresses turned to writing their own material. And what they came up with sprang in part from their own experiences, satirizing rarely explored elements within the Latino community, while offering some insight to those outside of it.

“Any artist tends to react off whatever the issues are in their environment,” said troupe member Armando Molina. “So if there’s anger about these images, you say, ‘Well, let me deal with that in my work.’ ”

The group’s current act, opening Saturday at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, offers one character who is so much in denial about her Central American heritage that she ludicrously claims to be French. By contrast, another member of the group plays a young woman who identifies strongly with the Chicano political movement but has to fake Spanish fluency.

The members of Latins Anonymous met about four years ago while attending a theater lab for Latinos in Hollywood. All four came from solidly middle-class backgrounds and, they said, felt little in common with the one-dimensional portrait of Southland Latinos that focuses on the barrios of East Los Angeles.

Even at the first Latins Anonymous shows, observers would often pull them aside to ask: “Where’s the pain of the barrio?”

Founding member Luisa Leschin, who is pregnant and will be replaced for the SCR performances by Julia LaRiva, laughed while recalling those initial reactions. “Where’s the barrio? We’re not from the barrio. They wanted to pigeonhole us.

“Thank God we’re past the point of trying to put food on the table and now can turn to more psychological musings and talk about identity.”

She said the troupe’s work speaks “more to the Latinos out there who weren’t the maids or the gardeners. There are people out there who are doing great, and they don’t see themselves being represented.”

Latins Anonymous initially wanted to explore a broader Latino experience from what’s most often depicted in the media, Leschin said. Even the recent film “American Me,” directed by and starring Edward James Olmos, “only showed one side of the picture,” she said. “The lower economic side is shown. And here we are kind of like everybody else: American.”

The arts community, insisted troupe member Diane Rodriguez, is where some of the old images are finally being changed. “It’s certainly not in politics, it’s not in the economy,” she said. “But there are many, many Latino artists, theater people, writers, who are really taking it in their hands. I think the breakthrough will come in the arts.

“We’re not going to solve the community’s problems, but we can at least inspire them to action.”

The current Latins Anonymous show, Rodriguez added, is only the beginning stage for the group’s message, which started by simply identifying how its members saw themselves and the Latino population in America. The next show, still in the writing stages, is designed to lampoon the media and will use video and other modern effects.

“I never appreciated how important image is,” Leschin said. “It’s easy to go, ‘Who cares if there isn’t a Latin (TV) show on the air. It’s not going to solve world hunger.’ But the more I explore, it really has an incredible impact.”