An LA-based Chicano-Latino performance troupe, this will be Culture Clash’s third dramatic encounter with the ancient playwright at the Villa, having previously performed reinterpretations of Aristophanes’ Peace and The Birds.
Aristophanes’ The Frogs won first prize at the Lenaia dramatic festival in 405 BCE, and was later staged that same year at the Dionysia festival. The comedy tells the story of the god Dionysus who, despairing of the current state of Athens’ tragedians, travels to Hades with his slave Xanthias to bring Euripides back from the dead.
Culture Clash’s riotously based adaptation takes place in three epochs as it dissects three important elements inspired by the original: A journey. Hell. And an essential artistic debate just before an after party in the 1970s with a Latin Rock band from the Bay Area also called SAPO (Sapo means Frog). Like Santana, they blend salsa and Latin rock but struggle until they venture to L.A. in hopes of meeting an industry record GOD but, in an oft-told twist of fate they find themselves somewhere between Malibu parties with a Rick Ruben-like record, Dionysus with a cup of plenty, and the featured stage at the El Monte Swap Meet.
In Sapo, Culture Clash precariously plays on the Aristophanal structure of gods, watery journeys, deception, damsel deities, and a chorus of frogs, while also diving deep into the matter of competing playwrights, who will smartly, fiercely, seriously, and funnily and mentally wrestle with the importance, differences, depth, and legacy of their respective and competing bodies of work and styles.
About Culture Clash?
Culture Clash is the nation’s most prominent Chicano-Latino performance troupe, with a body of award-winning work ranging from biting satire to full length original dramas, to adaptations of Aristophanes. For 33 years, writer-actors Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza have employed the ethnographic workings of social anthropologists, digging deep into America’s margins and racialized culture to formulate their sometimes outrageous brand of compelling site specific theater.