Kayla Martinez/THE RIDER GRAPHIC
The Theatre Department at UTRGV is never asleep. Jennifer Saxton-Rodriguez, director of the upcoming dark comedy play “Enfrascada”, attests to this as she prepares for the October show months in advance with her team of designers and actors.
In just 18 weeks, from start to finish, the team will have a complete production to take the stage on Oct. 8 in the Albert L. Jeffers Theatre on the Edinburg campus.
“Enfrascada” is set amongst an ensemble cast of women all dealing with one friend’s breakup, a tale of friendship with raunchy Spanglish humor along the way.
When asked what went into choosing the play, theatre professor Saxton-Rodriguez said she would run it by the classes she taught in previous semesters, where it happened to be the script to stick with her students.
“I think there’s a hunger to do contemporary scripts and plays by Latino or Latina authors,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s not about me.”
She emphasizes that her focus is the student experience.
Written by Tanya Saracho, the play follows Alicia as she and her friends handle the fallout of her breakup with the guidance of older women well practiced in brujería, Hoodoo and Santería to get her man back, according to the play’s page on showpass.com.
Valentina Capistran, a theatre performance senior, portrays three señoras, a trio integral to the journey the characters go on.
“It’s a lot of just trying to get everything memorized already, because the show is so soon,” Capistran replied when asked about the work going into portraying three separate characters.
In the director process, actors are the last to be folded into production onstage. While they audition at the top of the process, their work is ultimately tertiary with Saxton-Rodriguez soloing the first bit of the project, then the designers, and finally, the actors.
None of this is to say the actors are not integral. Saxton-Rodriguez works closely with them to ensure that they’re able to bring the theater experience alive, and involve the audience in the story unfolding on stage.
“Actors need to feel like they’re in good hands,” she said. “That they’ll be taken care of, that it’s a safe space to explore and to be honest and to try things and to fail.”
The play being a comedy does not necessarily take away from the heart of it. Saxton-Rodriguez said she chose the play based on a set of questions she asked herself, one being “Is it going to be relevant to [students’] experience or something that they’ll be interested in?”
The thesis of the play is portraying that one universal experience: heartbreak, and more specifically in the context of the all-female cast of “Enfrascada”, the sisterhood that can come of it.
“There’s always emotional beats and stuff, but … leave wanting to go out with your friends, leave wanting to get a drink or go to dinner with your friends,” Capistran replied when asked what message the audience should leave with. “And love your sisters and, like, everyone.”
For tickets, visit showpass.com.
