"Cooking Show" is tasty, funny theater

The revolution has gotten funny. And nutritious. And downright tasty.

Twisting and stretching the revolutionary rhetoric of the '60s and '70s into so much doctrinaire Silly Putty, Mero Cocinero Karimi and Comrade Cocinero Castro (who early in the show changes his surname to X, not to honor Malcolm X but to pay homage to former girlfriends) have taken the struggle to the kitchen.

And in the end, there really is a touching message of peace, love and brotherhood.

But since the duo of radical chefs knows any army travels on its stomach, Karimi and X feed their audience appetizers along with slyly funny revolutionary aphorisms in "The Cooking Show," a featured attraction of the 11th annual United States of Asian America Festival in San Francisco.

Dressed as chefs in costumes festooned with signs of protest and the show's revolutionary logo — the silhouette of a clenched fist holding a wooden mixing spoon — the two men, fiery Iranian-Guatemalan Karimi and straight-faced, Spam-loving Filipino Castro, uh, X, take the audience on a fast-paced trip through their goofy world of battling "rice-ism" and striking a blow against the packaged and over-engineered food produced by the faceless mega-conglomerates.

The piece is staged as a community-access television cooking show (and Karimi makes no bones about lusting for his own network food show; he even sings a song about it). Throughout the program, the

chefs prepare appetizers reflecting their combined Iranian, Guatemalan and Filipino heritage and serve them to the audience.

Karimi presents an intense character, fueled by his revolutionary fervor and frequently driven into a rage at Castro's affection for Spam, a favorite of his people, he explains. And when Karimi leaves the stage for a moment, Castro sings a love song to a can of Spam, fitting the lyrics to the tune of "Ben," the early Michael Jackson song about a rat.

The show, which plays Fridays and Saturdays through Sunday, is a great reason to visit the festival, which runs through June 15, and features a captivating display of the clever and moving artwork of Flo Oy Wong through May 25.

Reach Pat Craig at 925-945-4736 or pcraig @bayareanewsgroup.com.