‘Immigrant Project’ Considers Experience

“The Immigrant Project” isn’t smooth or flashy, but it does offer some useful insights into culture and ethnicity.

Words Across Cultures, an ensemble operating out of Deaf West Theatre, has stitched together this modest show from six poems and seven playlets describing the immigrant experience in America. The characters’ backgrounds range from Central American to Latvian, South African to Chinese.

The best plays come from Guillermo Reyes, who brings gentle humor and an accurate eye for detail to stories of Latinos adjusting to life in the United States. In “Dead Bolivians on a Raft,” a budding Watts playwright (Ron Garcia) is pressured by his Salvadoran parents (Linda Bustillos and Ernesto Miyares) to change his first drama. In “Self-Esteem for Immigrants,” a self-help class for Chicanos is led by a paranoid Puerto Rican instructor (Pablo Marz).

The quality of the remaining work is much more uneven. For instance, Mary Jane Roberts’ “Apple Strudel”--in which a Slovenian matron describes the impact immigration had on her and her children--has some fine moments but drags on too long.

* “The Immigrant Project,” Deaf West Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive . Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Aug. 13. $10. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.