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Culture Clash's latest couldn't be more timely.

By Brad Rosenstein

IN THE RECENT flood of conspicuous patriotism, it's been sobering to note how many voices of dissent have become eerily silent. Fortunately, Culture Clash is not among them, and its latest piece at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa, couldn't be more timely. Bringing together material from the group's various site-specific shows, such as Radio Mambo: Culture Clash Invades Miami and Nuyorican Stories, the show is an inspired transnational quilt. Uniting some of the group's most memorable real-life characters from across the country, the piece delivers a razor-sharp satirical picture of la vida loca we're all living now.

From Ric Salinas's expert parsing of Latino differences via salsa and Richard Montoya's spot-on Miami Beach P.R. man to Herbert Siguenza's hilariously matter-of-fact transgendered Mission educator, the trio nails the gaps between how people like to see themselves and who in fact they are. The piece also shows an affecting understanding of what America can be, intercutting the clear-sighted ruminations of an exiled Marine with the naturalization of two immigrants. In AmeriCCa concludes with new material on Berkeley, including a haunted encounter in People's Park that achieves a darker, richer, more complex tone than any of Culture Clash's work to date.

Director Tony Taccone seems energized here, doing some of his strongest, simplest work in years. And despite the predictable USA iconography, scenic and lighting designer Alexander V. Nichols creates some extraordinary imagery on a stripped-down stage. Perhaps because Culture Clash is so skillful at rendering the particular, the piece falls a bit short of the bigger statement for which it seems to be reaching. But as in Anthology a few seasons back, the cumulative power and hilarity of this work casts an intoxicating glow, and the group's take-no-prisoners satire is welcome in these reticent times.

Charming 'Alphabet'

Erik Satie's eccentric, playful approach to his art helped define modernism, and it's no surprise that he was John Cage's favorite composer. He's also the central figure in Cage's play James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet. Originally written for radio in 1982, the piece made its stage debut last year at the Edinburgh Festival. In a one-night-only performance at Cal Performances' Zellerbach Hall last week, the play featured a rare acting turn by dance legend Merce Cunningham as Satie.

In mounting the script, which features dense quotations both real and imagined by everyone from Buckminster Fuller to Mao Tse-tung, director Laura Kuhn deployed a nearly immobile cast of 12. Cage's sound score, realized by composer Mikel Rouse, was a teasing mix of "rational" and "irrational" sounds and ambiences.

What could have turned into a precious self-referential exercise emerged as a slight but charming crystallization of modernism, using Cage's chance techniques to create some beguiling juxtapositions of sound, sense, and image. Cunningham was a delightfully rooted presence as the whimsical Satie. Given the striking personalities gathered in Cage's script, you might hope for more solid exchanges between them. But this wasn't meant to be a trenchant meeting of minds: it's Cage's theatrical emulation of Satie's "furniture music," melodious background noise that fills in the silences great minds leave behind.

'Kate': Not so great

It's hard to believe anyone could make a ho-hum evening out of one of the all-time great musicals, but the touring production of Kiss Me, Kate at the Orpheum Theatre is sadly less than stellar. While director Michael Blakemore's Broadway revival took home a crate of Tonys, this road show suffers from some critical deficits. Chief among them is Rex Smith in the lead; he simply seems inadequate for the role's demands. Rachel York does fine if uneven work as Lilli, but without a partner of equal chops neither she nor the show can fly the way they should. Jenny Hill as Lois is alone in consistently hitting the mark.

Despite a hardworking ensemble the show only fitfully achieves the energetic highs of which it's capable. Boosting the tepid sound levels might help, but this production needs more than that. Still, Porter's glorious score is indestructible, and even the dated book by Sam and Bella Spewack bubbles along on its own comic steam. Robin Wagner's sets, Peter Kaczorowski's lights, and especially Martin Pakledinaz's stunning costumes are a pleasure to look at, and Kathleen Marshall's grounded choreography generates some heat. But none of it adds up to the sparkling delight this show can be.

'Culture Clash in AmeriCCa.' Through March 3. Tues. and Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m. (also Sat., 2 p.m.); Wed. and Sun., 7 p.m. (also Sun. 2 p.m.), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk. $10-$54. (510) 647-2949. 'Kiss Me, Kate.' Through March 3. Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m.), Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, S.F. $34-$76. (415) 512-7770.