“Take a trip to the Journeyless Cosmos where there are no borders.” This is a quote from the show, “Bordertown,” a series of often humorous vignettes with racial and lifestyle prejudice as the catalyst. The play, which continues at 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday at BC’s indoor theater, is set at the California-Tijuana border.
The show started with an acting troupe being stopped at the border by a vigilante posing as a border guard. Other highlights included sailors performing a well-choreographed dance routine to Frank Sinatra’s “South of the Border,” ending with a surprise twist of the Village People’s “In the Navy.” A very funny bit had Shamu the Killer Whale being examined by a psychiatrist. Referring to the city of San Diego, Shamu stated, “I hate being the poster boy for this town.”
The amazing performances were made all the more amazing by the fact that they were all performed by only five actors, all male, portraying multiple roles, including females.
I asked actor Keith Silvas how he got into each character, and he said, “After a while it becomes a routine. At first it seemed a bit overwhelming. So I started looking at each character one by one and thinking only about that character and nothing else.”
Director Kimberly Chin wanted these talented performers to get a real understanding of their characters firsthand, so she took them on a journey to the coastal town of San Diego, the affluent La Jolla and then they crossed the border into Tijuana.
Phillip Velasquez said of the experience, “At first I didn’t want to go. I thought it was unfair how easy it was for us to cross the border, and then see how difficult it was to come back.”
He went on to say “We were questioned, where are you from, where were you born, what nationality are you?” Vincent Cruz added, “I saw this guy talking to his daughters through the fence, and I started to feel this sort of empathy for them.”
In the downtown area of San Diego, they stopped off at the Chinese Historical Society Museum where Paul Nix got a reality check about his character, “Tom the Chinese Golfer.” Nix said of the character: “He is a real person. It is interesting to see that so much was taken from reality in a piece like this.”
Chin said the curator gave Nix the actual home phone number of the real “Tom.”
Chin also said, “I hope they learned about themselves. Whenever you go outside of your area, your comfort zone especially, you learn a lot about yourselves, about society and humanity.”
“Bordertown” was written by Culture Clash, an acting troupe founded on Cinco De Mayo 1984 in San Francisco’s Mission District.
“Bordertown” is thought provoking, funny and well worth the time invested.