‘Strictly a Formality’ Questions Authority : Theater: The drama by Garden Grove playwright Roy Conboy pits dissident historian against government official in an interrogation.

In “Strictly a Formality,” a dissident female historian and a government interrogator square off in a battle of wills in an interrogation room. The play suggests that its setting is somewhere in Latin America, but as Garden Grove playwright Roy Conboy notes with a sigh: “This could take place anywhere. A lot of this kind of thing goes on all over the world.”

The two-character drama opens Friday in the Phillips Hall Little Theatre West at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana. (Previews begin tonight at 8 p.m.) It’s a production of Cucucuevez (koo-koo-kwe-ves) , the multicultural theater troupe founded last June. Conboy, 40, a former general manager and casting director at the Grove Shakespeare Festival, is the company’s artistic director.

Conboy wrote “Strictly a Formality” with Tom Silber, a former UC Irvine classmate. It was developed at a 1980 workshop at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Franciso. It has had extended runs at the Theatre Rhinoceros in 1986 in San Francisco and at the Uprising Theatre in 1988 in Long Beach.

Barbara Covington, an instructor at Rancho Santiago--where Conboy has taught for five years--will direct the latest production, which will star Ken Jensen (a South Coast Repertory veteran) and Rancho Santiago instructor Susan Hinshaw.

This production is being mounted solely by funds raised by Cucucuevez.

The plot concerns an interrogator who uses mental, physical and sexual violence to persuade the historian to repudiate a book she has written. Among his weapons are government-prepared files about her life. “There’s a twist to what happens,” says Conboy, because “she’s gay, and he tries to use that against her.” He would not discuss the plot details further, explaining, “There should be some secrets.”

But it’s clear that “Strictly a Formality” adheres to what Conboy said is a troupe goal: “Presenting theater about societies as they are today.”

Cucucuevez was formed by a group of writers, directors and performers representing Anglos, Asians and Latinos, and it is an offshoot of the Rancho Santiago New Plays and Playwrights Workshop, which specializes in ethnically oriented works. Cucucuevez made its debut last August with Conboy’s “Buscando America” (“Looking for America”), about the misadventures of an Aztec god in modern-day Los Angeles. The group took its name from that of a homeless girl who was taken in and reared by a man who found her. “Her story,” Conboy said, “stands for our viewpoint of the world. One of the things we’ve lost in our race toward progress is a sense of caring, and of being responsible to human beings all over the world.”

Along with dealing with its goal to deal with multicultural themes, the troupe is also attempting to address what Conboy calls “a forgotten audience.”

Says Conboy, who is Latino: “It’s an audience nobody else in Orange County is really interested in. When you read about Orange County, you always read about people who live in places like Newport Beach or Irvine. But what about the other cities? And what about their populations? They deserve to come to the theater too.”

Although Conboy will be moving in August to teach playwrighting at San Francisco State University, he will continue to be involved with Cucucuevez.

Whether he will remain artistic director is, he adds, “up in the air.” “We’re an association of artists,” he says. “And artists come and go all the time. We scatter, and re-form.”

* “Strictly a Formality,” which will be presented in English and is recommended for mature audiences, will have previews tonight and Thursday at 8 p.m. The regular run will be Friday through Sunday and June 27 through 30 at 8 p.m., and also at 2 p.m. Sundays in the Phillips Hall Little Theatre West at Rancho Santiago College, 17th and Bristol streets, Santa Ana. Tickets: $5 for previews; $6 to $8 for the regular run. Information: (714) 564-5669.