Culture Clash, for the writer-actor trio bearing that name, is almost a misnomer.

The three, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza, have instead spent more than a quarter-century creating shows that perceptively, effectively and affectively demonstrate how cultures blend. And they just keep getting better at doing so, as underscored by their new version of “Culture Clash in AmeriCCa” at the San Diego Rep.

“AmeriCCa” is the most recent compilation of material they’ve created across the U.S., mainly comprising portrayals of varied personalities distilled from hundreds of interviews the Clash guys have done with everyday folks. When they do this show, or others they’ve developed, in a new city or in an updated version, they talk to locals to freshen the script and make it site specific. Yet the commonality of their characters illustrates one of CC’s points: People and their foibles, wherever they may live, are largely alike.

The three are excellent actors, mimics and comics, and they effortlessly handle most of the varied dialects, including subgroups of Spanish. So the vignettes become playlets, often featuring a character who seems worthy of a longer work. (CC has done full-length plays, including 2008’s “Water and Power” at the Rep and “Zorro in Hell” at La Jolla Playhouse in 2006.)

(From left) Ric Salinas, Herbert Siguenza

Richard Montoya

Thus Montoya becomes a Mexican worker, interviewed in a Home Depot parking lot, who details some of the work he’s done: “I painted the fruits and veggies in the Horton Plaza garage. The artichokes were a bitch.” He adds that, like himself, Shamu is a Mexican immigrant who took away a SeaWorld job. “He works longer hours and eats less fish.”

Salinas shines as a “Nuyorican” demonstrating how to tell differences among Latinos by the way they dance the salsa. For instance, he says, Mexicans flap their arms “like chickens,” Puerto Ricans “have an attitude” and Central Americans shake their nalgas (“Thank goodness Jennifer Lopez isn’t a Central American”).

The cosmopolitan lineup includes a lesbian couple from Carmel Ranch; an American Muslim who laments that his children worship two gods, Allah and Nike; an African-American preacher wondering how Jesus, a Middle Easterner, went from “looking like Osama bin Laden to Brad Pitt”; and a San Francisco transsexual and his/her partner disappointed at the conflicts among LGBT groups. Warning: There’s an explicit description of the penis-into-vagina surgery.

Not all portrayals are light and funny. One contrasts a Vietnam vet, living in Tijuana because he sadly considers the U.S. in decline, with a Ugandan and Filipino anxiously and happily awaiting their pledge to become U.S. citizens. Particularly poignant is the Boston Irishman, sexually abused as a boy by his priest, going to visit the dying cleric.

The Clashers’ talent for improv showed up as Montoya and Salinas were limning a pair of female aging '60s revolutionaries reminiscing with pot and wine. Montoya blanked, then said with a grin, “I got so stoned, I forgot my next line.” After several moments of laughter, Salinas, recalling Sarah Palin’s recent prompts, held up his palm.

The uncredited set — probably a Clash conception, like the sound and costume designs — consists mainly of the furniture needed for each skit, backed by the projected image of a huge U.S. flag with the colors grayed out. Like the play itself, it can be viewed pessimistically or optimistically. Does it mean the fading of the American Dream, or does it represent the nation’s increasing homogeneity, with the hope that skin colors will matter less?

Siguenza will be at the Rep longer than his mates. He’s going to do a workshop production of “A Weekend With Pablo Picasso,” playing the title role and painting on stage.

Cast and credits