‘Pachuco’ Suffers From Stage Fright

Unlike cinema and TV, experiencing theater is all about the circumstances, the time and place in which we see the play. Murray Mednick’s potentially sleep-inducing “Coyote Cycle” was life-altering when seen in a Southwest desert landscape. In July, Shakespeare Festival/LA is staging the familiar “Julius Caesar” on the unfamiliar site of downtown L.A.’s City Hall steps.

So, good judgment should have told writer-director Louie Olivos Jr. that a barren multipurpose room with large, uncovered windows and fluorescent lights was no place to present his two-years-in-the-making drama, “El Pachuco 1943.”

Performed at the First United Methodist Church in a predominantly Latino Santa Ana neighborhood, the surroundings get you in the mood for the unique Mexico/So Cal border cultural milieu of the bilingual “El Pachuco.” But almost everything in Olivos’ handling of the drama and staging short-circuits his intent.

Plodding where it should sizzle, hapless where it should be funny, awkward where it should be dramatic, “El Pachuco” feels so undeveloped it is hard to pinpoint exactly where things went wrong. It’s especially puzzling considering the story itself, which closely parallels El Teatro Campesino’s legendary breakthrough show, “Zoot Suit.”

Olivos draws, on paper at least, a novelistic web of families and characters, mostly Mexican Americans suffering and/or thriving in 1943 Los Angeles.

One side is the personal story, centering on the Marquez family. Son Robert (Victor De La Torre) is drawn away from home to the stylish, dangerous world of the “pachucos,” young Latinos strutting in zoot suits decorated with chains and feuding over girlfriends and turf.

While father Pete (Olivos) drinks and frets, mother Rebecca (Miriam Hernandez) takes charge and becomes a kind of “Rosie the Riveter” wartime worker, as her teen daughter Yolanda (Alexandra Robles) discovers boys, especially Manuel (Mario Ortega).

The other side is political: A German spy (Flavio Rebollo) aims to stir up resentment among Latinos against the mostly Anglo cops and soldiers on leave. Olivos’ drama suggests that such Nazi agents provocateurs stirred up the trouble that led to the so-called zoot-suit riots in the city in June 1943.

As Robert’s pal Johnny (Standahl Ruiz) is fighting in the Guadalcanal jungles, Robert--and the rest of the Marquezes--are drawn into the L.A. street fighting. Incredibly, it all ends happily, capped by a curious, dramatically awkward pro-Christian homily.

The war abroad, the war at home--Olivos paints his conflicts with a broad brush, and his constant tendency for melodrama undercuts the seriousness of what could be a bracing social tragedy. Yet as clumsy as the dramaturgy is, it’s at least thoughtful next to the numbingly amateurish pacing and staging.

The important stage and lighting effect of the blackout--a nightly occurrence in Los Angeles during the war and a major topic in the play--is impossible in this room. (It provided moments of unintentional comedy; an opening “blackout” scene happens when the pre-sunset light is pouring in.) Other scene changes take forever; actors are late for cues or drop out of character when flubbing lines; and fluorescent lights flash on and off with distracting regularity, washing out the steady stream of projected slide images intended to set the scenes.

This is fundamentally a workshop production cast with mostly under-rehearsed actors not yet ready for a paying audience. The exceptions are Hernandez, who works up strong emotional lather as mother Rebecca, and De La Torre in the all-important role of Robert, who embodies the play’s most dramatic elements. In his fusion of strutting machismo and youthful confusion, De La Torre’s performance suggests where Olivos’ play might develop--if it ever gets there.

* “El Pachuco 1943,” First United Methodist Church, 319 E. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana. Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. $10-$12. Ends June 21. (714) 568-0256. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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“El Pachuco 1943,”

Miriam Hernandez: Rebecca Marquez

Victor De La Torre: Robert Marquez

Alexandra Robles: Yolanda Marquez

Standahl Ruiz: Johnny Martinez

Brenda Velasquez: Lola

Javier Solis/Mario Ortega: Manuel

Flavio Rebollo: German Spy

German Navas/Russel Cibrian: Pastor Ayala

Francisco Garcia: Grandpa Marquez

Lydia Olivos: Grandma Marquez

Chuck Manus: FBI Agent/Towers/Officer Cates

Written and directed by Louie Olivos Jr. Choreography: Shiona Jackson. Spotlight: Ramon Delgado.