It will be a slightly different Culture Clash performing at this weekend’s Latin Music Festival. But don’t worry. The spirit of the comedy theater group will still be intact.
“We do theater,” says Herbert Siguenza, one-third of the 10-year-old troupe. “But in this case, in Chicago, it’s not a theater situation; it’s a concert situation. So we’re going to come out more musical there. Something bigger and musical, louder.
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“And in order to get the crowd riled up, we have certain material that’s perfect for that type of situation,” adds Siguenza, 35. He and partners Richard Montoya and Ric Salinas will do more musical impersonations, some rap and monologues with music included.
Fans of Culture Clash, especially those who watch their weekly television show on Fox-TV (Saturdays at 11 p.m. on WFLD-Ch. 32) are probably breathing a sigh of relief that the only thing the group will change for Saturday and Sunday’s appearances is the presentation. But for the three members, they are used to making changes.
Culture Clash performed in comedy clubs when the group was first formed. But “we preferred the theaters and the performance bases and stuff like that,” Siguenza says. “We wanted to do something that was more educational, more eye-opening.”
That meant going to theaters, which creates a more attentive setting for their type of socially conscious material. It is a style they picked up at a theater group under Luis Valdez, an activist for Latino causes and director of the hit movie “La Bamba.” Siguenza calls it material born out of the “Chicano movement.”
“A lot of our plays deal with that movement: Self-determination for the Chicano and the identity,” Siguenza explains. Latinos who live in the city and go to colleges and universities “have particular problems that are different than, let’s say, the migrant worker.
“So that’s the stuff we’re dealing with. More contemporary issues. Which are really national, too. The same problems affect Puerto Ricans and Cubans in other cities.”
It was those issues that Siguenza, Salinas and Montoya didn’t really see represented when they were all actors in various Chicano theater productions. That was a reason why they created Culture Clash in San Francisco.
“The issues that we were doing in those theaters were too limited,” Siguenza says. “We decided to write plays and sketches about our own experience, which was a younger, more urban experience.”
Some of the plays the three got involved with dealt with families and farm worker rights and immigration rights. “Which is fine, we need that, those are problems that still exist,” Salinas notes.
“But we really couldn’t relate to them because, personally, we weren’t farm workers, we weren’t this and that. So we had to write something that was true to us.”
Ironically, one of the bits Culture Clash has included in its performance has to do with one very celebrated farm worker: Cesar Chavez, the migrant worker who founded one of America’s first successful farm workers unions.
The three have written a corrido, or song that tells a story, which surrounds the funeral of Chavez, who died in April 1993 at the age of 66.
“That’s a really neat piece, because it’s really heartfelt,” Salinas says. “It tells an actual story, because we were actually there. So we basically recount our experiences of that day.”
But while diverting from traditional Latino theater, Culture Clash still retains an important aspect of it: comedy.
“Chicano theater had a lot of comedy in it already,” Siguenza says. “Culture Clash is just an evolution of that comedic theater that was already a tradition.”
The members of Culture Clash have been named masters of ceremonies for the sixth annual “Viva Chicago!” Latin Music Festival Saturday and Sunday in Grant Park,. The fest is happening from noon to 10 p.m. both days. For more details on the group’s performances, call 312-744-3370.
Last yuks
Something new, and something newer, is happening with two clubs this weekend. The something new is Joker’s Palace in suburban Dolton, which has Reggie McFadden from “In Living Color” and “Def Comedy Jam” as its grand-opening headliner. The club, which has been open for a few weekends now, is at 14421 Greenwood Rd. Call 708-841-4800 for show times and reservations.
The something newer is the opening weekend of Comedy Review in Aurora, which is run by the same brain trust behind the shuttered Laugh Factory. Special headliner this weekend is Rich Hall of “Saturday Night Live” and “Late Night With David Letterman.” Comedy Review is at 77 Stolp Ave. in beautiful downtown Aurora. For more details, call 708-280-7020.
The Improv (504 N. Wells St.; call 312-STAND-UP), in keeping with its variety format and credo, is hosting a national variety artists’ seminar Tuesday and Wednesday in its Backstage Theatre, where day and night workshops are planned. Call the club for information.
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