Keen commentary on all things great and small occurring in community life is the modus operandi for a Latino/Chicano trio, the comedy troupe “Culture Clash in AmeriCCa,” currently presented by The Huntington Theatre Company, at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts.

Culture Clash is created, written and performed by Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza. In May, this Los Angeles-based group will celebrate 20 years of steadfast friendship and of performing together.
The last time the group performed in Boston was in 1985 at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Montoya recalled that they could barely hear their own act in the downstairs gallery space while Yoko Ono was upstairs giving one of her famous performance-arts piece, banging nails.
To shape their new material, they forage in a community, interviewing nearly 100 residents; probing them for what is important, interesting, and even what is embarrassing about their community. From that, a tailored act is stitched together with plenty of local color emerging to compliment other significant national events.
Like wretched children, they delight in being objectionable to everybody.
This urban, in-your-face comedy aims to spare no one. The stuff is delivered with an irreverent spit, eliciting sporadic moans of delectable embarrassment from an uneasy audience expecting a good roasting.
Culture Clash does not preach moral righteousness. Their intent is to train a tongue-in-cheek spotlight on indelible community values.
The first expository scene showed a Muslim-American prostrate in prayer then in soliloquy. He shares a wry observation on his U.S. citizenship and his hackneyed job as a taxi driver: I have picked up everybody; sometimes a senator, other times a prostitute. And sometimes, I’ve picked them both up at the same time.
Next, the audience was treated to an animated satire showing not all Latinos dance salsa exactly alike: from Brazilians to Cubans to Puerto Ricans. The joyful exaggeration and distinction of arm movement, hip rotations, head bops, were amply demonstrated with verve and merriment.
Sacred Christianity was targeted. They noted that churches sprout everywhere like MacDonalds’ franchise; likening gobbling fast food to a thirst for Christ. Then, they marvel at the extreme makeover of Jesus of Nazareth who was somehow, mysteriously transformed from a dark hair, olive colored-skin Jew into a more palatable, Anglo-Saxon blond with a pale complexion and sky-blue eyes.
Other vignettes followed: A dowdily dressed, Beacon Hill gardening club matron, a lesbian Catholic biker in St. Patrick’s Day parade, pot-smoking hippies, a disabled Vietnam war veteran, father Joe the pedophilic priest, and a glaring flash of the 9/11 fatal plane crash.
Perhaps, the evening’s most memorable take was a scene rendering the sexuality of a trans-gender Adelita whose graphic musings and antics made clear that the only use for Emily Post’s book on etiquette is when she/he throws it at someone.
If pricking the local hot air balloon is their shtick then their opening political joke of a nameless senator’s taxi ride with a prostitute was totally flaccid. Boston is, after all, a land populated by political giants; O’Neal, Kennedy, Dukakis, Kerry, Romney; each with enough political and personal indiscretions to be hosed royally. And has the FBI seen Whitey Bulger lately?
Societal sham is a crying shame and Culture Clash has condescended to copping-out, sounding an apologetic tone that even a good garden may sprout weeds.
The show’s ending qualifier was telling. Yes. All of us know already that we’re proud to be hyphenated-Americans celebrating diversity before the show began.
“Culture Clash in AmeriCCa” will be at the Wimberly Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts until May 8. For information call 617 266-0800.