The Teatro Izcalli

On Friday April 18^th, 2008, San Diego’s nationally known Chicano comedy troupe, Teatro Izcalli, came to Chico, California to put on an entertaining night of laughter for students and the Chico community.  The group of Chicano comedy troupe started performing since 1995 and has traveled to all around the United States.  The comic skits and plays that they put on try to address issues such as racism, identity, education, and representation of Latinos in the entertainment industry.   The beginning and ending skits were dance performances unique to the Chicano culture.   The costumes looked very tribal with the long feather caps.  They were dancing to sound of their tribal drums.  They were dancing energetically and enthusiastically.

The rest of the show included a number of skits and plays that aroused numerous laughter from the audience.  My personal favorite was a parody of the character, Pedro, in the movie, Napoleon Dynamite.  In the movie, Pedro was a Hispanic high school student who was running a presidential campaign for his high school student body.  The guy imitating Pedro in the parody was hilarious.  His campaign was for president of the United States.  His pronounciation of certain English words with a heavy Spanish accent was very humorous.  VapoRub was a word he attempted to poke fun with.  It was funny the way he said it.  He also had sidekick named, Choh-Choh, who dressed up like one of those World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestlers with a mask and cape.  He also poked fun at Choh-Choh as well.

Other skits and plays included a family with two kids going off for college, Hispanics bringing foods into a theatre, a brief history about a great general of Mexico from a couple hundred years ago, a group of people in need of counseling, a play called, Juan More Beer.  The message of the family skit was to encourage young ladies to pursue higher education regardless of the obstacles in the way and the roles people expect you to perform.  The skit about the general from Mexico served the purpose of reminding the audience of the history of Mexico.  The Juan More Beer play attempted to poke fun at guys who are just hanging around drinking with nothing to do.  All the skits were amusing and funny to see.  Overall, it was a good hour and a half of laughter while gaining a little bit more awareness of the Chicano culture.