Culture Clash, the L.A.-based, Latino comedy troupe, has given new life to its 2003 show, Chavez Ravine. As directed by Lisa Peterson, the show bites into a big chunk of local history: the post-WW II destruction of a thriving neighborhood by rapacious and corrupt politicians and businessmen.
The neighborhood in question was, of course, Chavez Ravine, a rural L.A. hillside inhabited by thousands of Mexican-American families. Its streets may have been unpaved, and many of its houses may have been on the ramshackle side, but Chavez Ravine bubbled over with warm communal life for many generations. It had a church, schools, stores, fruit trees, goats and, above all, a proud, buoyant working-class spirit and solidarity. Then up jumped the devil, dressed in the guise of progress.
The city decided on a policy of “slum clearance.” Chavez Ravine was to be razed to the ground and replaced by a modern village designed by the architect Richard Neutra. The decision was taken without the consent of the villagers; they were perfectly happy with the way things were. The city ignored their protestations and began to clear the way (by the use of eminent domain) for the public-works project, only to be challenged by some of L.A.’s most powerful and greedy businessmen. Desperate to get their hands on Chavez Ravine, they used every dirty trick imaginable to undermine the City Housing Authority’s efforts, including the red-baiting of Frank Wilkinson, site manager for the CHA.
The class war became even more complicated when Walter O’Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, entered the picture. Looking to relocate his team, he decided that Chavez Ravine was the perfect place to build a new stadium and parking lot. Colluding with L.A.’s corrupt mayor, Norris Poulson, and some fat-cat Hollywood stooges, he pulled off one of the biggest land-grabs in U.S. history. Today the Dodgers play baseball on what is, in effect, the graveyard of Chavez Ravine.
Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza, the Culture Clash stalwarts who have been together since 1984, manage to tell this big, complex story in an entertaining way. Aided by Sabina Zuniga Varela, who plays a fiery community activist (and other roles) in amazingly assured fashion, and by an on-stage musical trio, Culture Clash mixes pathos, poetry, song and satire in its depiction of one of the sorriest, most shameful episodes in L.A.’s history.
Among the dozens of Chavez Ravine characters who turn up on stage, in rapid-fire fashion, are pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, radio announcer Vin Scully, police chief Parker, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (doing a Spanish-inflected version of “Who’s On First”) and J. Edgar Hoover (in a skirt). Director Peterson orchestrates all the quick changes and numerous entrances and exits deftly and skillfully. Jason H. Thompson’s wrap-around projection designs are a big plus, too.
Culture Clash makes you laugh hard and often in the course of this historical revue, but they also squeeze a tear or two out of you as well.
