Courtesy Anna De Luna’s show explores faith and family.

This weekend, the theater scene is all about culture clash. La Colectiva and the Guadalupe Cultural Acts Center both are staging plays about evolving Latino identity in contemporary American society. One focuses on religion; the other examines ideas of gender roles and traditional values, among other things, in Hispanic families. Both, fittingly, are works in progress.

Actress Anna De Luna always invited her parents to the plays she performed in, until she staged a one-woman show about her life. Her parents didn’t get an invitation to that one.

That’s because the show, “Chicana Atheist,” is about De Luna’s experiences as a nonbeliever in a Mexican-American Catholic family.

“I’m not ready for them to see it at this point, because it does get very emotional,” she said. “It’s still a hard thing for them to understand.”

De Luna, who studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and teaches a children’s theater program at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, always knew she wanted to do a one-woman show. She just wasn’t sure what it should be about.

Then she thought about all the funny stories she’d been telling her friends for years about growing up in a hardcore religious household.

Like the time she was in the hospital, happy because she wouldn’t have to go to church. Then her parents brought a priest to her room.

“I thought, if I’m telling all these stories, maybe I should write it down,” she said.

The result is a one-act monologue — De Luna says it is “95 percent true” — in which she plays different characters, including her family members. 

The play, which veers from comedy to poignant moments, also includes De Luna’s experiences with religious friends and lovers. She emphasized that the play explores her confusion and ambivalence about faith and isn’t “anti-religion.”

“No one I know has been offended by it,” she said. “It’s not so much just about atheism and religion. I think the play explores the universal experience of anyone trying to fit in with their family and friends and society in general.”

She did tell her mother about the first staging of the show, at TeatroFEST in 2006, because it was reviewed in a local newspaper.

“My mother was supportive when I told her,” she said. “I do want them to see it eventually.”

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor