Group Uses Comedy To Shatter Slurs

“Welcome to the show with the title that nobody wants to say,” said the man introducing N*W*C – the acronym for the show’s full title – to Virginia Tech on Wednesday night.

The title that no one wants to say is Nigger, Wetback, Chink. But, the title composed of three ethnic slurs commonly used toward African-Americans, Latin-Americans and Asian-Americans might be misleading for a show that attempts to shatter the hatefulness these words are often associated with.

N*W*C is a comedic play that delves headfirst into discrimination and racial stereotypes with a hold-nothing-back attitude. As the performers spit ethnic joke after ethnic joke, they open a racial discussion that would normally make the audience squirm in discomfort but instead makes them squirm with laughter.

The show is performed by three young men – Miles Gregley, Rafael Agustin and Allan Axibal – of different ethnic backgrounds – African-American, Latin-American and Asian-American respectively. All experienced problems with racial stereotyping growing up. N*W*C has become an outlet for them to share their stories.

Their stories are personal and painful. But, the guys never seemed to have difficulty including them in a play they co-wrote with the help of their former teachers, Steven T. Seagle and Liesel Reinhart, who also direct the show.

“We’re kind of extroverted people in that we tell people our (stuff) all the time,” Axibal said. “And to be able to present it in an entertaining way – to make it accessible – was kind of a cool thing.”

“To get (our stories) out there was a privilege and sometimes a challenge,” he said.

Agustin said he remembers how powerful the stories were when they told each other for the first time.

“When we knew we enjoyed our stories,” he said, “we really admired what we were saying – that’s when we were like: ‘OK, we can talk about this.’”

They have been talking about it on college campuses across the country for the past couple of years.

It started in 2003 when all three were students at UCLA. Agustin and Gregley were having trouble getting parts in student productions. It seemed no one wanted a Latin guy or a black guy for Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams.

Agustin decided he would need to create his own show if he wanted to showcase his talents. He enlisted the help of two former teachers, Seagle and Reinhart, from Mt. San Antonio College, the community college where he, Axibal and Gregley started before transferring to UCLA.

With their help, Agustin’s idea for a one-man show turned into N*W*C. The friends performed their show to rave reviews at UCLA. As audiences craved more, the show took off.

It got so big that the guys and their professors created the Speak Theater Arts Company to produce the first professional run of the show. After graduating from UCLA in 2004, and refining their show for about a year, the guys took N*W*C on the road. They have been touring mostly college campuses since then.

Agustin said telling his family and friends he was on tour was strange for awhile. But, after about a year, it finally set in that he really was on tour performing a show he helped conceive. The group has found that touring can be stressful, though

“It’s challenging because it’s a job,” Axibal said. “It does take a lot to travel, to set up, to do your thing and wake up and be prepared for interviews or public forums or just the show itself. Like all jobs, it can become a little tedious. But there are fun times and we’re performing. And that’s what makes it cool, because you are doing the thing that you like to do.”

The guys said the reception for the show has been mostly positive. And that might be because, as Axibal said, the show is really meant for everyone – it’s not just a show for minorities.

“The show is about identity,” Axibal said. “There are a lot of broad themes within the show that everyone can relate to.”

However, not knowing how the show will play for different audiences can sometimes be a source of anxiety for the group.

Gregley said the group was nervous before they performed in Elon, NC about a year ago because they were in the South and they were not sure how they would be received. But, a packed house welcomed them with open arms.

“It was the most explosive show we ever had in our life,” Gregley said. The audience gave them a standing ovation twice – including once in the middle of the show. It was such an overwhelmingly positive reaction that the guys returned recently for another show.

That type of reaction is perhaps the best way for the guys to judge how a performance has gone.

“You’re up there,” Agustin said,” and you’re like: ‘Wow, I really want you to like me as a person in my story. Then I want you to like the writing and how we put the show together. Then, I want you to like me as a performer. There’s all these things that run through our heads.”

“Trying to win an audience over,” Axibal said, “sometimes you feel this challenge of: ‘Is the audience getting it?’” You’re doing a show and exposing your personal story. You’re doing it to a point about spreading a certain kind of awareness and about fighting a certain type of ignorance. And that’s difficult sometimes to come up against that.”

Judging by their reaction, the guys won over the Virginia Tech audience. Mary Grace Campos, the woman responsible for helping bring N*W*C to Virginia Tech, said she was pleased with the crowd.

“It felt good in the room,” she said. “You got the laughter and you got the sense of people were getting it.”

“I personally loved it,” she said. “It’s probably one of the best shows – and I’ve worked on lots of different programs in my time here at the university; small scale, large scale. This is probably one of the best, if not the best, that I have seen in my time.”

As Assistant Director for Advising for Multicultural Programs and Services at Virginia Tech, Campos oversee the programs run by the Blacks Student Alliance, the Asian-American Student Union and the Latin Association for Student Organizations, who all co-sponsored the performance as well as a public forum on race and ethnicity hosted by the men of N*W*C on Thursday afternoon.

Campos estimates that at least 500 students turned out to see N*W*C performed at the Squires Commonwealth ballroom. It was far from a capacity crowd, but Campos said she was not disappointed.

“I would have loved to have filled the ballroom last night,” Campos said. “But, I’m also very conscious of the fact that there’s lots of different things happening on campus. And some people just aren’t comfortable with something like that and some people just aren’t ready.”

Campos said the title of the show, which can intrigue people into coming, can also keep them away.

Discussing and using ethnic slurs tend to make people uncomfortable but it is not always minorities who are bothered by the words.

“The reactions to the words were very different when we first put it up,” Agustin said. “When we first put it up, we realized that it wasn”t really African-American, Asian-American or Latin-American that were very upset. Mostly, white people were very offended by the words. That’s the most interesting phenomenon that we discovered at the beginning of the show.”

Although the show has been altered and fine-tuned since the guys starting performing it, the title has remained.

“When we realized what the show was,” Agustin said, “with how much these words try to take the place of our cultural identity, we knew that this had to be the title. We had to tackle it and put it first and foremost: ‘Bam.’”

Those words are first and foremost. At the beginning of the show, each performer, dressed in racially stereotypical outfits, enters the stage repeating the ethnic slur used for his race over and over again.

“I don’t think it was a hard decision for the three of us (to use those words)” Agustin said, “because we’re like family and these aren’t hateful words to us. Really, these are words that people think we are (and) that’s ridiculous.”

Through N*W*C, Agustin, Gregley and Axibal have used these words not as tools of hate, but as tools of comedic irony designed to break down racial stereotypes.

“When people use irony,” Axibal said, “it’s to make a point and our show definitely does use irony and does use racial humor. And sometimes people are worried that people won’t get it. I think our show is a really good example of a very crafty way to use humor to undermine the stereotypes.”

The group recognizes the show is part of a positive discussion looking to change the way people in this country view race. They hope to continue to have a voice in that discussion through N*W*C and other individual projects they would like to explore when they take a break from the show’s tour in February.

However, Agustin, Gregley and Axibal don’t make any assumptions about their role in such a broad and controversial topic as race.

“I don’t want to assume that we have a big place in (the race debate),” Axibal said. “I’ll let other people do the talking in terms of that.”

And right now, N*W*C has lots of people talking.