Monica Sanchez and Blake Kushi in Conjunto, by Oliver Mayer. (Jon Lawrence Rivera)

Los Angeles-based playwright Oliver Mayer revisits a disgraceful chapter of local history in "Conjunto," a kaleidoscopic portrait of Japanese American farm owners and Mexican migrant laborers caught up in the World War II-era hysteria that made a mockery of freedoms we take for granted.

Internment camp awaits Min Yamada (Michael David Cheng), a would-be urban sophisticate saddled with the family farm in rural Burbank that he inherited. Like many second-generation immigrants, Min has little affinity with his cultural heritage, considering himself all-American. "I am not the enemy!" he fumes in response to the relocation order.
'Hard Core': A review of the play "Hard Core: Women's Reflections on Iraq" in Friday's Calendar section misspelled the surname of actress Margaret O'Hora as O'Hara. —

To thwart authorities, Min sells his land to his faithful Mexican farmhand, Genovevo (Gil Bernardi), for $1 and asks him to hide his very traditional wife, Shoko (Annie Katsura Rollins), who Min doubts would survive confinement.

Min's largess sets the stage for a triangular conflict with romantic, legal and moral dimensions when Min is freed.

Mayer's ability to sketch a full complement of diverse characters in vivid, muscular strokes benefits from three powerhouse lead performances. Among the capable Playwrights' Arena ensemble, standouts are Blake Kushi as Min's dope-addicted brother, Monica Sanchez as a hard-edged zoot-suited drug dealer and Bobby Plasencia as a comic Mexican laborer.

In the absence of a just social context, these characters must find their own moral footing, which often takes unexpected turns. In a playful, stylized flourish, some turn for guidance to respective American and Mexican cinema icons Gene Autry and Jorge Negrete (personified in a dream by Cheng and Bernardi).

The play's shifting realities and localities strain the limited production values, and although director Jon Lawrence Rivera compensates with inventive use of lighting and sound, the complex interlocking narratives are hard to follow. They also have a tendency to ramble, and Mayer opts for a disappointingly facile quasi-utopian wrap-up.

Still, "Conjunto" forcefully resonates in depicting the exploitation of "guest" immigrant workers and the suspension of American citizens' civil liberties. The relative progress we've made since 1942 that Mayer illuminates is far from comforting.
— Philip Brandes

"Conjunto," Playwrights' Arena at Studio/Stage, 520 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 10. $20. (213) 627-4473 or Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Laughs plentiful in 'TeleMongol'

These are trying times for the Asia Home of Language Entertainment. It's hard to create programming by and for the Asian Pacific American community and snag their dollars at the same time. That clash centers "TeleMongol" at GTC Burbank. By taking down stereotypes in the context of a fictional cable network, this riotous collaborative sketch show attains a satiric edge that ranges from sophomoric to savage.

A joint presentation by Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, Cold Tofu Improv, OPM and 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, "TeleMongol" tackles every Asian trope imaginable and then some. "APPA Knows Best" pits writer-performer Charles Kim's priceless Korean mom against Jully Lee's modernized daughter, engaged to a Filipino who Mom insists is Mexican.

Take a stroll through "Mr. Hueser's Neighborhood," in which author Aaron Takahashi and actor Robert Covarrubias ravage KCET-TV's "California Gold" series. Wanru Tseng's "Desperate Asians of Lotus Lane" upends the Marc Cherry ethos with hilarious zest. "Brokeback Gold Mountain," written by Michael Chih Ming Hornbuckle, goes just where we're afraid it will; Kim's jaw-dropping "The Very North Korean Holiday Hour" goes further than that.

Director Henry Chan and his fearless cast keep the energy high and the laughs plentiful. As the network execs, Corinne Chooey, Ewan Chung and Michael C. Palma maintain straight faces, no small feat. Other standouts are Denise Iketani as an unctuous Asian history drone, Tseng as a Vietnamese manicurist/advice guru, Takahashi and Kim as jewel-crotched rappers, and Lee and Greg Watanabe as news anchors.

Ruthlessly romping about Alan E. Muraoka's logo-dominated set, "TeleMongol" may horrify the racially sensitive and easily offended. Fans of Comedy Central and "Borat," however, will roar at such wicked comic comment.