STAGE REVIEW : ‘Rice’ Delivers Hot and Cold

“A Slice of Rice,” the Asian-American ensemble Great Leap’s two-evening show of eight solo performances, is not to be confused with slice of life realism. If the company, whose tour brings them to Cal State Northridge’s Little Theatre on Saturday and Sunday, is sure about anything, it’s not about to dwell on some form of quiescent naturalism. This is a mini-festival of direct address with a patina of hipness.

More than rice, the food “Slice” most recalls is Indonesian rijsttafel-- a series of increasingly spicy dishes. But as curated by Nobuko Miyamoto and Dan Kwong and directed by Anne Etue, the order of dishes are mixed, in every sense.

Saturday’s menu, for instance, starts cool then heats up. Charlie Chin’s “Living on Gold Mountain” feels like a ‘60s folkie revival as the group’s unofficial elder mixes tales of the California Gold Rush--from the Chinese side--with Pete Seeger-like tunes on guitar. Kwong follows with the kind of autobiographical word-and-movement performance more typical of the program. His “Boy Story,” though, recycles a lot of familiar rites-of-passage themes without a needed dose of vitality.

Like Shishir Kurup’s “Assimilation,” part of Sunday’s bill, Miyamoto’s “Joanne Is My Middle Name” plays with the idea of a double name--American and Asian--creating a complex identity. But her account of her breaking out of a bad marriage and finding herself as a dancer could do with a little more complexity. Jude Narita reprises “Strong Heart” from her own ensemble show, “The Tiger on the Left/The Dragon on the Right,” and it shows a gifted actress giving herself over to characters. The light opening section, about a jilted woman, uneasily nestles with the much more emotional grist of the closing part--Narita’s astonishing monologue as a Cambodian refugee telling us her dreams and nightmares.

Chin, again, kicks off Sunday’s show, followed by an abbreviated version of Amy Hill’s perky, inventive “Tokyo Bound.” Here, the performer’s life story (about Hill’s trip to Japan as a student) is tethered to sharp comic instincts and a natural clown’s way of going to the limit--and no further. Kurup’s “Assimilation” is probably the best example of direct address in the whole collection. He isn’t a stylish performer, but he has an ingratiating warmth that gives his various dilemmas as a young Indian coming to terms with America’s “burger” culture an honest connectedness.

The personal, again, concerns Long Nguyen in his “Translation,” but it’s linked to an ambitious work of fluid, elastic dance movements that build mounting tension. Nguyen’s beautifully coordinated voice and body seem to cross cultures, and defy gravity, at will. Missing from this weekend’s bill but appearing at the tour’s final April 18 stop at Cal Poly Pomona Theatre, Louise Mita works overtime to be funky in “Trust,” her fairly plain stories of growing up Japanese among brown and black people, but Mita’s constant Afro-American-rap comps come across as an affectation.

“A Slice of Rice,” Cal State University Northridge, Little Theatre, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Also plays Cal Poly Pomona Theatre, 3801 W. Temple Ave., Pomona, April 18, 8 p.m. $10; (310) 392-7937. Running time each evening: 2 hours.