Stage Reviews : Latins’ Anonymity Suits ‘LaLaLa’ in San Diego

The walking disaster of “The LaLaLa Awards,” the new show by Latins Anonymous at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, seems light-years away from the success of the comedy troupe’s first show back in 1989-90.

In 1989, troupe members Luisa Leschin, Armando Molina, Diane Rodriguez and Rick Najera created a show drawn from their own experiences as actors who had been kept on the fringes of Hollywood success because of racial stereotyping. For them, this show was their alternative to auditioning once more for Maria the maid or Juan the drug dealer. They drew it, too, from personal experiences about trying too hard to fit into Anglo culture, changing their names, changing their mannerisms--finding humor in both the attempts and the results.

Like the classic Hollywood success story of the chorus member who becomes an overnight star, it was a big hit. The show enjoyed extended runs at the now-defunct Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1989 and at the San Diego Repertory Theatre in 1990.

Unfortunately the sequel, “The LaLaLa Awards,” like so many Hollywood sequels, stinks. After a brief run at Los Angeles’ Japan America Theatre in October, the company is back in San Diego at the San Diego Rep’s Lyceum Stage through Saturday. But now it has a show with no focus, no point and very little humor.

They have changed one cast member--the fine Cris Franco filling in for the fine Najera (now busy as a staff writer for Fox TV’s “In Living Color”). That’s not the problem. They still have the energy and the will, but company members seem to have forgotten how to write a script.

Instead of helping them find clarity, director Jose Luis Valenzuela has piled on glitz with a six-person dancing ensemble, a revolving gold statue and fancy costumes--just an increase in dead weight that helps sink the ship all the faster.

The ostensible plot of “The LaLaLa Awards,” subtitled “The Latins Anonymous Lifetime Achievement Awards,” concerns a caterer (Franco) and his catering team (Leschin, Molina and Rodriguez), whose deviled eggs unwittingly poison Latino artists about to perform for a Latino awards program called the LaLaLa Awards.

While stars die off and the catering team panics, various Latino artists (played by Franco, Leschin, Molina and Rodriguez) are parodied in the awards ceremony. Ricardo Montalban (Franco) is renamed Ricardo “Ontalbano” (translation: “Where is the bathroom?”) and treated as a stuck-up star who wants to give an award to himself. Cheech Marin (Molina) is lampooned as a druggie. Roseanne Barr (now known as Roseanne Arnold) is renamed Roseanne Barrio--even though she isn’t Latina--for no discernible reason other than that Leschin seems to have mastered her nasal, deadpan delivery. And Charo (Rodriguez) is, well, Charo (how do you make a caricature of a caricature, anyway?).

If it all sounds dull and pointless, it is. There are hints of levity: The funniest skit involves Franco as a Latino weatherman mapping out where Latinos are migrating across the United States. That could have been one skit in the old “Latins Anonymous” show. But in this show, it’s just a blip of a chuckle in an excruciating 80 minutes of brain death.

“The LaLaLa Awards” has no intermission. If it did, who would stay for the second act? When the curtain mercifully closed, someone in the audience said: “Quick, let’s get out of here before they do something else.” The exit of the meager crowd at a recent performance was correspondingly swift.

‘The LaLaLa Awards: The Latins Anonymous Lifetime Achievement Awards’

A Latins Anonymous production of material written and performed by Cris Franco, Luisa Leschin, Armando Molina, Diane Rodriguez. Director Jose Luis Valenzuela. With Evangeline Fernandez, Calixto Hernandez, Definique Juniel, Dewain Robinson, Jaime Rodriguez, Julia Romero. Sets: Steven La Ponsie, Gronk. Lights: Jose Lopez. Costumes and graphics: Patssi Valdez. Choreography: Miguel Delgado. Musical director: Joseph Julian Gonzalez. Sound: Mark Friedman. At San Diego Repertory Theatre, Lyceum Stage, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m., 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 6. $21 to $24; (619) 235-8025. Running time: 80 minutes.