Written and performed by Danny Hoch, his new solo show “Taking Over” premiered at Berkeley Rep, directed by the theatre’s artistic director, Tony Taccone, last Wednesday. In the course of a 90-minute show, Hoch—twice an Obie Award-winner and a well-established theatre, TV and film personality—presents nine different characters, including Danny, a performer—being distraught over the gentrification of a vibrant and colorful, if crime- and cocaine-ridden urban neighborhood. In his concluding monologue, Danny, a performer, remembers some local hardware store, owned by an ethnic minority family for more than 40 years, which he personally supports by not shopping at Home Depot. In a striking narrative, Danny, a performer, paints a vivid picture of a Puerto-Rican store owner, who feels at ease humiliating and insulting his Dominican employees, yet who is teaming up with them to farther humiliate some Mexican shoppers, somehow considered a great target for all kinds of disrespect. The whole group becomes all smiles and patience as long as a rich white customer wonders in… In one of his show’s most expressive and masterfully written pieces, El Dispacher, Hoch corroborates this notion of severe inner discrimination inside an urban ethnic community through the image of a Latino taxi dispatcher, who shells out insults in Spanish to his subordinate taxi drivers from his higher-up, "clean job" position. He calls home and speaks English with his daughter, "Ashley," who is supposed to bring the whole family up to the new level, perhaps, becoming the first college-educated professional in generations. Somehow, the brutalities of El Dispacher's life are the result of the "system," which suppresses minority immigrants and is by wider implications criticized by the author, while Ashley's success must be just a result of some folksy ingenuity of her smart-assed father... Besides those obvious contradictions, which are bound to stick out in any "rebellious" work by a well-accepted and rewarded artist, Hoch’s talented depiction of real-life characters unveils a host of ugly truths about the prejudices, intolerance, xenophobia (apparently, a xenophobic New-Yorker is not an oxymoron any more) violent tendencies, and shabby chic snobbery of the presumably repressed and marginalized. I say presumably, because it is rather unimaginable to be marginalized while representing an overwhelming majority. As in a small town, U.S.A., narrow-mindedness and mob rule prevail in urban neighborhoods, threatened by what Hoch’s characters perceive as "occupation" and a hostile takeover. In the light of such revelations about a changing neighborhood, the author’s passionate protest against gentrification sounds unclear on the concept, but the vibe and energy, packed by Hoch’s performance cannot be underestimated. “Taking Over” is first of all funny, and it's a talented piece of theatre--highly engaging and entertaining... until the underlying message actually sinks in. The show runs through February 24. For tickets and info call: 510-647-2949; toll-free 888-4-BRT-Tix or visit: berkeleyrep.org <http://www.berkeleyrep.org/>
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