A 'CLASH' OF TWO CULTURES: COMEDY AND ARTISTRY.

Byline: Julio Martinez Special to the Daily News

The nation's premier Chicano/Latino comedy trio has made a return engagement to Los Angeles Theatre Center in ``Culture Clash Anthology: A 15-year Retrospective,'' celebrating 15 years of its unique brand of socially relevant/irreverent humor.

Created, written and performed by Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza, the production offers loosely structured highlights from 15 years of work, including ``The Mission,'' ``A Bowl of Beings,'' ``S.O.S.,'' ``Radio Mambo,'' ``Carpa Clash,'' ``Bordertown'' and the recent ``Nuyorican Stories,'' which has not yet been produced in Los Angeles.

Constantly breaking down the theatrical ``fourth wall'' to include the audience in the shenanigans, ``Anthology'' is a joyous outing that underscores the trio's ability to infuse profoundly insightful socio-political awareness of Latino life in America with a hilariously adroit comedic physicality. Two lengthy pieces dominate the first act. Satirizing the self-conscious ritualism of ``The Godfather'' films, Siguenza offers a burlesque-style portrait of Christopher Columbus as a godfather figure, overseeing the in-fighting of his favored Anglo son (Salinas) and his New World offspring (Montoya), whose mother (Vivianne Nacif) is the symbol of all American Indians.

Eventually proclaiming himself as ``the first Chicano,'' Montoya comically destroys the specter of Columbus and his brother for centuries of abuse to Latin Americans. Montoya then assumes the dead-on persona of an easygoing San Francisco-based ``vato'' who would rather send out for Domino's pizza and watch the 49ers on TV than get involved in a Chicano movement political rally.

Playing like a perfectly timed Marx Brothers routine, Montoya's low-life tranquillity is invaded by the ravenously militaristic ghost of Che Guevara (Siguenza), who insists that Montoya and the Domino's delivery man (Salinas) start a revolution by taking over the pizza empire ``one Domino at a time.'' Montoya deadpans to Salinas, ``We have a guerrilla in our midst.''

The second act begins with the ingeniously symbolic ``Bordertown'' vignette, featuring Salinas as the San Diego husband figure to Siguenza's Tijuana wife. Though he crosses over at will to have his way with her, San Diego will never allow the much put-upon Tijuana ever to be part of his real life. Siguenza then offers a poignant ``Radio Mambo'' monologue as a gently philosophical Haitian immigrant who sees his life in Miami as simply getting along with his neighbors but never trusting the political system.

Displaying a telling lack of recrimination, he utters sadly, ``Government is the enemy, and we the people pay for it.'' Displaying the Culture Clash technique of taping interviews with people to harvest the material for their shows, Montoya re-creates a comical session with a grotesquely clueless Miami couple (Siguenza and Salinas), who mindlessly relate how their demolition company has reaped a fortune from the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew.

Concluding the show with excerpts from ``Nuyorican Stories,'' the trio re-create the powerful writings of such Puerto Rican poets as Miguel Pinero. And Salinas offers a physically facile display of footwork as he explains and demonstrates how you can tell a person's ethnicity by ``the way they dance salsa.'' The production design (set and costumes) of Christopher Acebo does much to facilitate both the symbolic and the satiric elements of Culture Clash's unique brand of comedy.

The facts

--The show: ``Culture Clash Anthology: A 15-Year Retrospective.''

--Where: Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown.

--When: 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday; through May 21.

--Tickets: $20 to $27.

--Our rating: Three stars