‘Mad Mexican’ Hits Funny and Sad Notes

Ruben C. Gonzalez is a baby-faced performer with some good ideas, a lot of raw talent and an occasionally heavy hand. Gonzalez can’t decide whether he’s aiming for your tear ducts or your funny bone in “Diary of a Mad Mexican,” his funny but flawed one-man turn at Masquers Cabaret.

The show opens on a bombastic note with Gonzalez’s portrayal of Earl, a racist stoner who finds Latinos easy scapegoats for the downward spiral of his life. The paranoiac Earl--who would just as soon blow up a federal building as look at it--is flat-out funny, despite an innate edginess that could easily tip over into something very unfunny indeed.

The balance isn’t always maintained. Capably staged by director Jim Ishida, Gonzalez’s compelling character comedy sometimes descends into manipulation and bathos. The savage promise of a game-show sketch (“You know you need a green card to redeem your prizes--no green, no dreams”) slips from the crisp to the cloying. And the evening’s closer, a self-conscious piece about a Latino youth’s ill-fated romance with a white girl, jars badly with Gonzalez’s otherwise biting social commentary.

Still, Gonzalez’s Frankie, a reformed homeboy recently out of prison, is a neatly drawn character who avoids any touch of the maudlin, even when he’s quoting Hesse. And Butch, a Latino drag queen who hosts the cable access show “Men Talk With Butch,” hilariously celebrates his own flamboyance with scathing lines like “I’m more woman than you’ll ever have and more man than you’ll ever be.” It’s this kind of pointed characterization and epigrammatic panache that makes Gonzalez worth watching. However, he needs to mix a splinter of ice into his syrupy segments if he expects them to jell.

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* “Diary of a Mad Mexican,” Masquers Cabaret, 8334 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles. Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 12. $10. (323) 653-4848. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.