New play by UTPA prof stirs politics, sex

Professor Eric Wiley has started a new breed of hot plays that enlarge The University of Texas-Pan American’s drama focus.

The five actors all do great jobs in perhaps the most unique play in Pan American’s long history since the 1920s. When three actors pull guns on a crazed friend, it looks logical and real. So do the arguments, money problems and love scenes. The New World Order needs a name for plays like this. I suggest not “theater of the absurd,” but “theatre of stark reality.” Wiley wrote a comedy about Winter Texans that ran 14 nights last year in packed theaters throughout the Valley.

Nothing could be as different as his newest play. Many will miss this for its frankness, but most reality fans should like it. Maegan de la Rosa plays Heather, a woman running away from her dangerous husband. She is in shock and broke when she winds up in Port Mansfield, on the northeast corner of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Heather has problems that might seem theatrical, but are all too common nowadays. She has lost her job and cannot seem to finish her degree, or do anything to get work. These stage problems are common as dirt this year, and she plays them accurately, trying to attract male help so she can survive. Hiram Joseph Perez plays Orson "Bear" Winters, who takes charge, or tries to, as a well-off owner of a deep-sea fishing boat. He’s the only character who is rich, but he remains suspicious about anyone after his money in the present bad economy that affects everyone, including his rich customers

Bear cannot see why young people can’t do better. He is living in the more-friendly past when most people could get jobs and not have to behave as badly as today’s conditions require. Erik Raul Cantu plays Tommy Winters, a patriotic soldier who faces another tour of war duty in the Middle East. His problem is that he is torn between duty and reality.

So Tommy goes to visit his uncle and face the facts of his life including his attraction to home and a sexy woman. More life-like drama unfolds.

Kate Dirrgl plays "JK" as another fine fit for this all-too-real play. She obviously learned playing against type by making herself into a far different person than she is off-stage. The last act sizzles with realistic fire.

"The Magnificent Five" would fit this cast, who performed a dark play so well.

This strong new show is scheduled for only five performances, but it might play more by popular demand, as Wiley’s comedy did, and video copies certainly should be made. The play’s odd name, "The Red and the Blue," refers to the Republicans and Democrats. They are never mentioned in the play

People from both parties should like it because the terrible changes in modern life affect everybody and these are just five "real" people trying to survive.

The last two years of history hark back to the hurts of The Great Depression in the 1930s, and this play faces up to these current disasters as keenly as a stage can suggest it. Let’s hope the world’s pains will ease up enough to make Eric Wiley and his friends produce comedies again.

THE RED AND THE BLUE
WHAT: A new drama written by UTPA professor Eric Wiley
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21; 2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 22
WHERE: Albert L. Jeffers Theatre, COAS Building, University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg
CALL: (956) 381-3581