STAGE REVIEWS : Events Move Too Fast for ‘Latins Anonymous’

Times change and nothing changes faster than the humor used to satirize them.

Latins Anonymous, the four Latino comedians in denial therapy who introduced themselves to Los Angeles three years ago, are proving in Orange County that they’re still stuck in the same old denial.

This poses a bit of a problem at South Coast Repertory, where they opened their show Saturday--virtually the same show from all accounts (their own included) that they offered at the Los Angeles Theatre Center three years ago.

Julia La Riva has replaced original cast member Luisa Leschin, who is expecting a baby and was cheerleading in the audience, but the rest of the original company, consisting of Armando Molina, Rick Najera and Diane Rodriguez, is up to its old tricks.

Old is the operative word.

This writer did not see the original show at LATC, but this edition of Latins Anonymous is pre-Los Angeles riots. These guys haven’t been minding the store. They haven’t noticed that the store has been looted and burned.

What may once have been a fresh and clever idea for some funny routines, born of four Latino actors’ frustrations with Hollywood stereotypecasting, is now mild, slightly dog-eared material.

One would mind the shortcomings less if they were only a function of not keeping pace with political events, but the sketches, written by Leschin, Molina, Najera and Rodriguez, are dramaturgically lazy. Most have no real endings. They either merely stop, aided by lighting designer Jim Reva’s fade-outs, or have a manufactured tag that only diffuses their point.

When Luisa (La Riva) says, “ Bonsoir , my name is Nicolette and I admit to absolutely nothing,” it is funnier as a lampoon of disorder groups in general than of a Latina who’s convinced herself that she must be French and adopted.

The subject matter, such as Latino men’s penchant for blond women or their obsession with machismo , is mostly trite and true. You smile at Samuel Espada, private pachuco investigator, but the posturing wears thin.

The better skits, even without punchy endings, are the ones that dwell more on specific character: Rodriguez’s Hermana Petra, something of a cross between Oprah and Tammy Baker; Najera’s dissection of his American self and his Mexican self and his waiter who was once “a somebody” in a rock group called Menudo; Molina’s “sensitive guy in a macho body.”

And there are some individual zingers: the reference to Hollywood’s “Hispanic stereotypes and the Italians who play them”; the Chicana who only wants “a black Saab like Richard Montoya (of the satirist group Culture Clash) and Anglo gardeners”; the acknowledgment that “a Mayan is a terrible thing to waste.”

Even in a show like this.

Rodriguez has the right idea. Loud, brash and defiant, she is the most comically gifted of the group, which only points up the tendency among Molina, Najera and La Riva to soft-pedal their indignation.

Cliff Faulkner has designed a backdrop that successfully blends advanced graffiti and a comic strip style. It provides an apt context, but this is a show that depends entirely on the wit of its writers and performers for its success. And there it needs serious sprucing up.

Latins Anonymous might take a cue from that other , more politically aware group of Latino comedians, Culture Clash, whose satirical barbs take broader and sharper aim at the cultural confusion.

Jokes about Nancy Reagan painted on black velvet have seen their day. Jokes about Los Angeles’ cultural politics need to see theirs. This inadvertence at least partly accounts for the missing urgency in the Latins Anonymous show.

The bottom line is that you can’t be a nice satirist, and you certainly can’t be a blindfolded one. A reluctant matador is a dead matador. It’s time for Latins Anonymous to do more than just rehearse.

* “Latins Anonymous,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 7 p.m. Ends July 5. $17-$22; (714) 957-4033. Running time: 2 hours.

Julia La Riva, Armando Molina, Rick Najera, Diane Rodriguez Ensemble

Written by Luisa Leschin, Armando Molina, Rick Najera, Diane Rodriguez. Director Miguel Salcedo. Sets Cliff Faulkner. Lights Jose Lopez. Original Costumes Patssi Valdez, Jim Reva. Additional costumes Loren Tripp. Original prop design Jim Reva. Production manager Paul Hammond. Stage manager Randall K. Lum.