Vintage satires still prove to be apt

Healthy irreverence runs through “Simply Maria, or the American Dream” and “Los Vendidos” at Casa 0101. Even if the current immigration debate did not give these vintage Chicano satires by Josefina Lopez and Luis Valdez as much caustic heft as it does, this blessedly unforced, winningly played double bill would be worth noting.

Valdez’s 1967 “Los Vendidos” (“The Sellouts”) opens the show with deadpan zest. Despite a dated premise, the message remains wickedly apt, as a Sacramento staffer for then-Gov. Ronald Reagan visits a “Used Mexican Lot” to find a token subject for photo ops.

Honest Sancho (a breakneck Francisco Garcia) hawks his robotic stereotypes to Miss Jimenez (pert Julie Estrada Evans) in high-end sketch comedy manner. After Victor Casteneda’s farmer, Dave Trejo’s pachuco and Oscar T. Basulto’s revolucionario prove too impolitic, Jeremiah Ocana’s assimilated test model leads to a snide reversal that presages Culture Clash.

“Simply Maria,” written by Lopez when she was 17, follows as the evening’s showpiece. This 1988 saga of a teenager (the endearing April Ibarra), her traditional immigrant parents (Ramona Pilar Gonzales and Jose de Jesus Martinez) and the academic liberation that she covets retains its surreal appeal. Sandy Bowles, Miriam Moses and Valerie Rodriquez make hilarious inner voices (Fanny Garcia alternates), while the climactic dream sequence uses catapulted childbirth dolls and a giant tortilla to tickling effect.

Under Karla Ojeda’s clever direction, the actors are charming, the designs are modest yet effective and guitarist Carlos Melgar offers dulcet preshow strumming. The demographic in question should eat up these one-acts, but anybody could reap insight and laughter from such tart puncturing of intercultural contradictions.

-- David C. Nichols

“Simply Maria, or the American Dream” and “Los Vendidos,” Casa 0101, 2009 E. 1st St., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct 29. $15. (323) 263-7684 or www.CASA0101.org. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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Of strong bonds forged in the city

As H.G. Wells could tell you, time travel is a perilous undertaking. A trip down memory lane can land one in a haunted wood, where ghosts of the past still linger. Reunions are particularly risky endeavors that can foster keen nostalgia or reopen old wounds. Levy Lee Simon’s “The Bow Wow Club,” at the Stella Adler, is a funny, wrenching look at what happens when a group of former pals, middle-class kids from Harlem whose paths have widely diverged, reunite for the first time in 20 years.

The action is set in 1995. Newly settled in his Maryland home, retired military veteran Kirk (John Marshall Jones) is the host for this reunion of the Bow Wow Club, the informal boys’ club of his youth. Former Bow Wow members Alex (Erik Kilpatrick), a political activist, and Lester (Larry B. Scott), a wealthy pop star, arrive for a little male bonding and beer swilling. The stakes are higher for boozy, bitter Sal (Freedom Williams), who is reaching out for personal connection after a family tragedy. However, when former Bow Wower Chuck (Terrance Ellis) airs a startling secret, this July 4 holiday gathering takes a pyrotechnical turn.

Director Dan Martin elicits robust performances from his talented cast, which includes Nancy Cheryll Davis as Kirk’s religiously devout wife, Addie Daddio as Alex’s pregnant Caucasian spouse, J. Todd Howell as Chuck’s “significant other,” and Mamie-Louise Anderson as Sal’s wife. However, Amanda Aardsma, who plays Lester’s beautiful French girlfriend, devolves into a Gallic caricature more appropriate to farce than this bittersweet comedy-drama.

Also problematic is Simon’s somewhat mechanical treatment of his overlong play’s obvious themes. At times, Simon seems so intent on serving the cause of cultural diversity that he stumbles into political polemic. But when illustrating the bond between these characters -- a fellowship of survival forged in the inner city -- “Bow Wow” soars above its shortcomings.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“The Bow Wow Club,” Stella Adler Theater, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 15. $25. (323) 960-5521. www.bowwow411.com. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

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A first daughter readies for world

“Y’all be the other teachers,” chirps the title character of “The Miss Education of Jenna Bush,” which plays Upstairs at the Coronet through Saturday, “an’ I’ll be Jenna.” As happens throughout, the first daughter then emits a familiar giggle.

Paternal approval seems the point of this brash solo show, a crowd favorite at the 2005 New York Fringe Festival. Melissa Rauch, who co-wrote “Miss Education” with director Winston Beigel, portrays the more, um, celebratory of the Bush twins as she readies for life as a public school teacher, despite a hangover and daunting family issues.

After a Secret Service agent leaves, his charge calls for Chinese takeout. Jenna can’t recall the address of the Georgetown apartment in which she stands. So she calls Mom on voiceactivated cell to relay the info to the restaurant on her landline. True, Jenna mixes up the numerals, but, hey, that’s why redial was invented.

Rambling around Caitlin McCleery’s set, which includes a keg, a bong and a dartboard with Bill Maher’s face, our heroine could not be more amiably talkative. Recalling a Jewish classmate spurs an assurance that “I’m not antiseptic,” one of many malapropisms, and her candor is admirable. “Did y’all hear what Kanye West said about my daddy?” Jenna asks us. “I’ve been saying that for years.”

That this sorority talent night comes off is due to Rauch, who vanishes inside her subject with crack timing and unyielding twang. She hardly stretches a glorified sketch into a play, though, and the stabs at sympathetic irony are unsupported by the “Beavis and Butt-head” contours. The charitable should not hold Jenna accountabilistic.

-- D.C.N.

“The Miss Education of Jenna Bush,” Upstairs at the Coronet, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd. 8 p.m. today and Saturday. Ends Saturday. $20. (310) 657-7377 or www.ticketmaster.com. Running time: 1 hour.