20-05-2025
Power, Pio Pico and the Beginning of Los Angeles Live on Stage
What becomes of the strong and stoic who try to preserve the old ways while the winds of change swirl all around them? Pio Pico was California's last Mexican governor before the territory was ceded to the United States in 1848. Pico lived large in his day, partying and gambling and building lavish monuments around Los Angeles, but died nearly broke. After he died, his tomb was vandalized and his wife's body stripped of her jewels. When his name is spoken today, it's mostly to curse the traffic on his namesake new stage production California Story shines a wildly contemporary light on this ancient L.A. origin story. During Pico's lifetime, Southern California (or as he would have called it Alta California) transformed from a dusty pueblo of maybe 300 to a burgeoning mini metropolis of 55,000 Americans. Everything Pio knew was uprooted and changed as the old traditions and social hierarchies of Spain and Mexico were superseded by cold, hard Yankee capitalism encroaching from the east. East L.A. native Peter Mendoza plays Pico with a ferocious intensity and much wailing and gnashing of teeth, flailing as his empire crumbles around him. He plays the part with such an indignant madness that I could see why he was cast as Night Stalker Richard Ramirez in an upcoming film.
As Pico descends into a righteous rage and passionate denial of the new world falling atop him his little brother Andrés (played with elegant coolness by Davi Santos, perhaps best known for playing a refined knight on TV's Power Rangers) attempts to talk some sense into the ex-governor, hobbled by bad luck and bad loans. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed Sawyer Shine practically twirls his moustache in devious delight as he topples the old empires while his long-suffering wife, played by Camila Arteche, suffers some more. Playwright Roger Q. Mason (Lavender Men) spent years developing the story as part of the Califas Trilogy, three productions about 'land, power and dreams' and the past, present and future of our state. California Story joins Hide & Hide and Juana Maria on L.A. stages through June. Mason's surrealist staging shifts back and forth through three centuries with the aid of the Legendary Children, a roller-skating Greek chorus inspired by Disney's Hercules, that pops in and out of the dream. The innovative staging, lighting and special effects are almost overpowering, but then you realize you're sitting around the campfire, listening to stories of those who were here before you.
Outside In Theatre presents California Story Caminito Theater at Los Angeles City College855 North Vermont Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90029
Now through June 3
