Surreal, in any language

A small group gathered at the Mexican consulate near MacArthur Park on Wednesday night for the staging of a “Mexican pop operetta,” billed as a unique espectaculo bilingue by performance artist Maria Isabel Benet. It was bilingual and it was a spectacle all right -- goofy, bizarre, disjointed, underdeveloped but somehow still compelling.

Like a slightly amateurish cross between Carol Burnett and Cantinflas, the actress/artiste came out with her messy hair in pigtails, wearing a wrinkled raincoat with clothespins clipped along the sleeves. Then she launched into a surreal montage of poems, pantomimes, percussion and odd personalities, apparently unafraid to act ridiculous in any language.

She smacked castanets on her forehead. She spoke into a play telephone with a talking elephant from a Mexican zoo. She twirled about like a hippie with a scarf over her head. And employing the strangest of stage props, she strapped a black-skinned, bushy-haired doll to her waist with its pudgy face to the audience, its arms and legs and eyelids flapping as Benet did a pelvic-thrusting mating dance during a number called “The Housewife’s Lament.”

Benet comes from a well-established school of Mexican divas, such as Astrid Hadad and Liliana Felipe, whose feminist-tinged satire can be irreverent and outlandish. Although not in their league, Benet certainly has a lot to say -- about bored marriages, urban violence, environmental protection, political corruption -- and is hellbent on finding an original way to say it.

In “Cafe La Perla,” she invokes the mythical King of Mixcoac to convince a jealous partner that her chats at the Pearl Cafe are harmless. The redhead with milky white skin dons a platinum wig and asks, “Why blame me for being born blond?”

Benet, who hails from Mexico City, first developed her stage concept in the mid-’90s with a cultural grant from the city. The film actress and former ad jingle singer set out to create a “sonic weaving” of Mexico by stitching together lyrics and native music with sampled street sounds she recorded of vendors and indigenous people.

In “En el Eje Ejele Vial” (On the Axis Road), Benet layers the noise of traffic and falling rain with the voices of a priest at the cathedral, a homeless man singing and children selling papers on the street. It’s a fascinating idea that works better on paper than in person. The recorded soundtrack combined with Benet’s live vocalizations sometimes verged on cacophony.

Benet mounted her one-woman show with little time and no funds, relying on newfound California friends who volunteered sound, lights, props and encouragement. She got outstanding instrumental support from guitarists Michael Tanenbaum and Hector Marquez, playing the small Mexican jarana. What she needed most -- besides more rehearsals -- was strong direction to tame the excesses and smooth the rough edges.

On Wednesday, for example, Benet insisted on keeping the lights so low during the first few numbers that she could hardly be seen, even from front-row seats in the small consular meeting room. Her intention was to keep the audience focused on the music. Instead, the darkness drove it to distraction.

Maybe when she performs tonight at Espresso Mi Cultura in Hollywood, she’ll keep the lights on.

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Maria Isabel Benet

Where: Espresso Mi Cultura, 5625 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Today, 9 p.m.

Price: $10

Contact: (323) 466-0481