Richard Montoya, Culture Clash, and the Dreaming of American Night Richard Montoya, an eighth-generation American, was born in San Diego, spent his formative years as an artist in San Francisco, and now calls L.A. home. California is one of the nation’s most diverse states—so it’s perhaps unsurprising that the performance collective he’s been part of there with collaborators Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza since 1984 is called Culture Clash. The group grew out of a rich Chicano, or Mexican-American, artistic landscape fertilized by 1960s activism. Fellow Chicano writer-artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña has called the trio “reverse anthropologists and social detectives” who “irritate everyone democratically.” He points out that in the 1990s, armed with their unique brand of satire, Culture Clash invaded many forms of media previously uncharted by Chicanos, from television to opening for the rock band, Rage Against the Machine, to video art in film and television. The last time Montoya took the stage at Yale Rep, in 2003, it was to perform Culture Clash in AmeriCCa, directed by Tony Taccone. The play grew from ten years of conversation
with all kinds of people, everywhere from their native California to New York. Five years later, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioned the group to launch its nine-year American Revolutions cycle of new history plays. The result was American Night, written by Montoya and developed with Culture Clash and director Jo Bonney. Characteristically prescient, the play opened shortly before Arizona SB 1070— the strictest immigration law in the United States—was scheduled to go into effect. The Yale Rep production, directed by Shana Cooper, marks American Night’s East Coast premiere. Montoya and Cooper’s collaboration has brought a number of updates to the script to reflect current events and resonate with a New England audience. As you’ll see, American Night remains insistently timely. The Supreme Court released a split decision on SB 1070 this June, allowing both sides to claim victory. Today, these “United” States are increasingly divided on issues from politics to religion to sexuality. At the close of our first African American president’s first term, on the eve of an ideologically driven election, Montoya does something truly radical. He dreams all Americans, from Sacagawea to the person sitting next to you, onto the stage. For everything that threatens to sunder us as a nation, American Night gives us all something in common—laughter can be a great uniter. —LD
CULTURE CLASH (LEFT TO RIGHT): RIC SALINAS, HERBERT SIGUENZA, AND RICHARD MONTOYA. PHOTO BY JOHN MALDONADO.