City streets’ beat

In the world of nonprofit theater, getting your picture on the cover of American Theatre magazine is roughly comparable to a rock band making the cover of Rolling Stone.

But the New York-based troupe Universes has mixed feelings about the April cover that featured members Mildred Ruiz, Steven Sapp and Gamal Abdel Chasten. Mostly, it was the headline that rubbed the wrong way. “Hip-Hop Theatre,” it read in large type and, below that, “Beyond the Bling.”

“What is that?” Ruiz asked somewhat rhetorically, sitting with her Universes compatriots in a lounge upstairs from the Ivy Substation, where their show “Slanguage” opens tonight. “Bling,” with its connotation of the free-spending materialism of rap stars, connotes “a very different world and a different financial situation” from the world of Universes, she said.

To be fair, the cover story pointed out that Ruiz “bridles” at the term “hip-hop theatre” and quotes her saying, “What we do is theatre. We come from hip-hop and poetry and our cultures, but what we do is theatre.”

Not that audiences should expect a play, per se. “Slanguage” is a performance that uses poetry, movement and sound effects. It’s replete with references to life on the streets of New York. A reviewer for the New York Times wrote in 2001 that “Slanguage” is “rap and riffs and gospel and bluesy laments, among other poetic forms,” creating “a roller coaster of rhythm ... a work of heart and soul that distills the essence of the city.”

Many of the wordsmiths who inspired parts of “Slanguage” predate hip-hop by decades: Jack Kerouac, Muhammad Ali, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka. Still, the “Slanguage” trio grew up in one of the cradles of hip-hop: the South Bronx.

Of the three, Chasten is the oldest at 42, and had the most experience with early hip-hop, trying his hand as an MC, a DJ and a musician. “I have never paid money to see a hip-hop concert,” he said. “I was there when it started in the schoolyard. I’m not paying to see it.”

After a music career didn’t pan out, Chasten spent five years as a vascular technologist before resuming his artistic quest. Universes was already in existence by then, consisting of Ruiz, Sapp and two others -- Lemon and Flaco Navaja, who have since gone on to the Def Poetry Jam circuit. Chasten saw them perform at a block party and was struck by how “they fused poetry with music. I didn’t know you could do that.”

He appreciated the artistic freedom offered by the group, whose method he defined as “Whatever you’ve got, bring it” -- including his own percussion background. “It’s all part of one big gumbo. I wouldn’t have to write in a box.”

Ruiz, 33, and Sapp, 37, took other routes to Universes. Ruiz is the daughter of singer and poet Gloria Cuevas, who burned the secular songs she’d written when she converted to Pentecostalism. Ruiz, who was 7 during that dramatic event, became a singer in Pentecostal choirs but later helped her mother re-create some of the burned songs.

Sapp was first turned on to theater as a teenager. He was break-dancing in the street outside a Broadway theater -- mostly for fun but also for whatever spare change came his way. An usher invited him to see the musical “Dreamgirls” free -- an amazing experience, Sapp recalled. He and Ruiz met as students at Bard College in upstate New York and are now married with a 3-year-old son.

After college, Sapp and Ruiz helped create the Point, a South Bronx cultural center, and also became part of the poetry scene at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan. Chasten met them at the Point and first performed with Universes at the Nuyorican in 1997.

Almost from the beginning, Universes’ work as an ensemble, which requires them to think about the effect of the entire performance instead of just their individual contributions, pointed them in the direction of theater. They draw a distinction between their work and poetry slams, which are about competitive linguistic gymnastics, they said. And while they incorporate music, they believe their work is also unlike rap, where the beats get more respect than the words.

After Universes began working with a theatrical director, Jo Bonney, they were booked at the prestigious New York Theater Workshop in 2001. Their success there led to gigs in venues from Anchorage, Alaska, to Valparaiso, Chile.

For this performance -- part of the Mark Taper Forum’s Taper, Too series at the Ivy Substation -- recent replacements Dominic Colon and Ninja are in for Flaco and Lemon. But the original quintet’s words are still in use, with some revisions. Bonney is again directing.

“Slanguage” is full of New York-specific references, such as a recurring series of poems set on a south-to-north subway. But the Universes have felt welcomed by audiences far from New York. Altering the text for non-New Yorkers would be a mistake, Sapp said. “We would fall into more stereotypes, because we’d be thinking, ‘This is what they know, so I’ll help them get it.’ ”

This doesn’t mean Universes is oblivious to the audience’s ability to understand. A glossary is printed in the program.

Ruiz’s main objection to the term “hip-hop theatre,” in fact, stems from her concern that it would “lock out audiences who think ‘I’m too old’ or ‘I’m not cool enough.’ We want our mothers in the audience.”

They’d like to get the kids too. But being older than 30 -- that’s a status that is viewed with suspicion in hip-hop circles, they’ve learned. Yet in the theater world, Ruiz said, “it’s better if we’re older.”

“But it’s bad too,” added Sapp, “because they can’t promote it as much for young people.”

“That’s right,” Ruiz said. “They really want to believe we’re kids fresh off the street.”

*

‘Slanguage’

Where: Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City

When: Friday, 7 and 10 p.m.; Saturday, 4 and 7 p.m.; Sunday, 8 p.m. Regular schedule beginning Tuesday: Tuesdays-Thursdays, Sundays, 8 p.m.; Fridays- Saturdays, 7 and 10 p.m.

Ends: May 23

Price: $25-$30

Info: (213) 628-2772