Theatre Review : Once Upon a Time in Old California : Luis Valdez’s ‘Bandido!’ deconstructs the myth of 19th-Century legend Tiburcio Vasquez, playing up the tale’s melodramatic elements.

Speaking of “Zoot Suit,” his 1978 play that marked El Teatro Campesino’s famous first collaboration with the Mark Taper Forum, Luis Valdez once remarked that his intention was to “disenravel” certain ethnic stereotypes by re-examining them “directly in historical and theatrical terms.” As he did with the image of the pachuco, the hep 1940s Chicano zoot-suiter in that earlier work, Valdez now goes further back in time to inspect another cultural cliche--the cut-throat Mexican bandit--in the new production of his revised 1981 musical play “Bandido!” at the Mark Taper Forum.

The bandido of the title is Tiburcio Vasquez--played here by A Martinez--whose exploits are more suitable for Valdez’s purposes than, say, the more bloodthirsty Joaquin Murieta, who terrorized and excited California for three years until his capture in 1853. A reminder of his grisly death is a presence throughout the evening. Vasquez outfoxed the law for almost 20 years and was, by all accounts, a personable and even witty outlaw.

The newspaper reports of the day admired Vasquez’s occasional gallantry as well as his grace under pressure, which he exhibited even on the gallows in 1875. Apparently Vasquez had another kind of grace as well, and his trial was faithfully attended by a cast of female admirers.

But most important, Vasquez may also have had a political or revolutionary consciousness, and it’s that aspect that Valdez seizes on to tell his story of displaced native Californios, fighting bravely against the white conqueror. In fact Vasquez foreshadows the hero of the Mexican revolution Emiliano Zapata, who was betrayed and assassinated 44 years later. In “Bandido!” Vasquez is a revolutionary without a revolution.

The play begins with the rope being placed around our hero’s neck as he shouts, “Pronto!,” and falls through the trap door. It ends with his death 14 minutes later, so that the events of the play are in effect the bandido’s life replayed in his mind while he is hanging.

Those events--two and a half hours of real time that couldn’t exactly be described as “Pronto!”--are told in Valdez’s signature mix, an almost vaudevillian melange of song, posturing dialogue that occasionally quiets to a less hyperbolic state, and character as Symbol. It is a form both child-like and naive and one that flirts dangerously with cliche without necessarily elevating or reinventing the familiar.

Asked where he’s been, Vasquez will respond, “I’ve been like the night wind, riding here and there, bending trees to my will.” Inevitably, his lover Rosario’s eyes are “haunting as the moon.”

Rosario, who was dispossessed of her family’s land (“most of northern California”) by the white settlers and is the wife of a trusted Vasquez soldier, asks Vasquez rhetorically and for no particular reason, “Where are those acres and acres of land that were rightfully mine?” While Valdez lets us know over and over that he is in fact riffing on a melodramatic form, too much of the dialogue in “Bandido!” is indistinguishable from daytime TV.

The primary symbolic characters in “Bandido!” are a nurturing Madame named Kate (the statuesque and graceful Patty Holley who looks spectacular in Julie Weiss’ gowns) and a rapacious, top-hatted and beauty-marked impresario played by Clive Revill, who seems to be doing John Barrymore auditioning for the part of the King in “Huck Finn.”

At one point Revill can be seen inexplicably picking something from his teeth, and one can only assume it’s from so much scenery-chewing.

It’s the impresario who sets Vasquez’s crimes in motion, insisting that the crowd’s hunger for real-life melodrama must be satisfied. He peddles Murieta’s severed head and plans to sell the story of Vasquez as well.

It is the public’s appetite for melodrama, in other words, that spurs Vasquez to be a bigger, bolder and more violent criminal than he would like to be. Valdez uses this dichotomy freely, placing the blame for his bandido’s crimes always on outside forces.

In deconstructing the myth of the bandido, Valdez romanticizes him anew, making him a Hamlet for the ‘90s, complete with a strong aversion to whatever violent acts he might be forced into contemplating.

He is constantly lecturing his men against their trigger-happy impulses and when three people are killed by his men in the famous Tres Pinos robbery, Vasquez laments their deaths with the anguish of a Greek chorus.

The schema of “Bandido!” poses problems for the actors, and under Jose Luis Valenzuela’s direction few of them are able to create something original out of the declaiming. All in black, Martinez makes an impeccable outlaw/Hamlet with his holster slung low on his hips. But his is a largely desultory performance, with some hints of a more interesting bandido in the reflective moments.

The lovely and usually dependable Saundra Santiago brings nothing surprising to the fiery Rosario, but Sal Lopez, in the smallish part of the foul-mouthed henchman Gonzales, bites into the role and gets some fresh comedy out of it.

Lalo Schifrin has written some lilting ballads, although they are frequently marred by Valdez’s lyrics. One, a song about lynching reminiscent of “Strange Fruit,” goes, “Hanging bodies/Soaking in the rain./Hanging bodies/Not feeling no pain. . . . “

Victoria Petrovich supplied the plastic-looking mountains, which come off better when separated from view by a thin partition. Lighting designer Geoff Korf does well with the cloudy mountain sky, which shifts from dead of night to dawn to morning in a seamless flow.

It is still a matter of historical debate whether or not Vasquez fired any of the deadly shots at Tres Pinos. That possibility is not acknowledged in the moral universe of “Bandido!” We are asked to consider Vasquez as a nascent revolutionary fighting the good fight, yet one who never addresses the question of how to have a revolution without killing anybody. This renders Vasquez as not the gentlest, but perhaps the least brilliant of outlaws.

* “Bandido!,” Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday 7:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday matinees, 2:30 p.m. Ends July 24. $28-$35. (213) 972-0700. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Oscar Cartaya: Ensemble

Enrique Castillo: Abdon Leiva

Richard Coca; Chavez

David Holcenberg: Ensemble

Patty Holley: Kate, Mother

Steve Hull: Ensemble

Lettie Ibarra: Sally Forth, Ensemble

Marabina Jaimes: Rita, Lady

Jeff Juday: Deputy, Lewis, Posse, Ensemble

Linda Kerns: Mrs. Snyder, Lady, Minstrel

Linda Lopez: Molly B. Damn, Soledad, Ensemble

Sal Lopez: Gonzales, Minstrel, Pico, Posse, Ensemble

Karl Fredrik Lundeberg: Ensemble

Michele Mais: Jenny Talia, Ensemble

A Martinez: Tiburcio Vasquez

George McDaniel: Sheriff Adams, Mr. Snyder, Ensemble, Minstrel

Tony Perez: Blind Feliz

Clive Revill: Impresario, Priest

Rafael H. Robledo: Gentleman, Wooden Indian, Posse, Old Gabriel, Ensemble

Al Rodrigo: Moreno, Posse, Ensemble

Saundra Santiago: Rosario

Mark Slama: Gentleman, Corpse, Mr. Bones, Posse, Ensemble

Ramon Stagnaro: Ensemble

Efrain Toro: Ensemble

Pamela Winslow: Daisy, Corpse, Ensemble

Center Theatre Group/Music Center of Los Angeles County Mark Taper Forum and El Teatro Campesino in association with AT&T; OnStage present the world premiere of “Bandido!” A new play by Luis Valdez. Music by Lalo Schifrin. Lyrics by Luis Valdez. Directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela. Musical Director/Dance and Vocal Arrangements David Holcenberg. Musical Arrangements Karl Fredrik Lundeberg. Choreography by Miguel Delgado. Set Design by Victoria Petrovich. Costume Design by Julie Weiss. Lighting Design by Geoff Korf. Sound Design by Jon Gottlieb. Casting by Stanley Soble, Lisa Zarowin Production Stage manager Mary K Klinger. Producers Phillip Esparza and Corey Beth Madden.