Content area
Full Text
JH: Carlos, as a playwright, what did you think of the text of Montoya's play? The credits said "Richard Montoya for Culture Clash," so this was not the kind of collaborative creation for which Culture Clash is so well-known.
CM: In terms of the dramaturgy, I thought it was a commendable first time effort. This seems to be a drastic change for the group, judging from this play and their last work at the Berkeley Repertory, Zorro in Hell. Culture Clash seems to be going in a radical new direction in Montoya's bittersweet tale of Mexican American twins from Los Angeles. However, I never understood why the twins were called "Water and Power." Chicanos usually have apodos like "Pelon" or "Tonico" or "Smiley." I presume it was the nicknames the father (Winston J. Rocha), a hard working laborer for the Department of Water and Power, gave them.
JH: Yes, I understood that the father named them Water and Power as symbols of his many years with the company but also to represent their personalities. However, I, too, had trouble getting the connections. Sometimes, a playwright assumes the audience is going to grasp little hints here and there, but that is not always the case, ¿que no? What was this play about to you?
CM: It's a coming of age story: a very unique L.A. saga about two Chicanos who assume their rightful place in the largest city on the West Coast, a city that for so long negated its Mexican-American population. This is the real "power," one twin (Richard Montoya), an attorney and up-and-coming politician and the other a police officer (Herbert Siguenza) in the LAPD. Although it could also be about the abuse of power in that the police officer kills a suspect who has been contracted to eliminate his twin brother. Another aspect of power is that our Chicano stories are finally being heard at professional sites like the Mark Taper Forum.
JH: To be fair, the Center Theatre Group has a long history of producing Chicano stories. Don't forget Zoot Suit in 1978, not to mention Culture Clash's earlier pieces at the Taper, Carpa Clash (1993) and ChavezRavine (2003). But speaking of power, as we saw in the movie, Chinatown, the growth...