Vida & Vignettes: PCT, director prepare for play

There’s a humble theater here on Park Avenue that can be quite easy to miss if you’re not looking close enough.

The Pharr Community Theater was established in 2008 and is a staple of the arts. The theater performs several productions throughout the year that capture various audiences of the sorts.

Plays take on fresh new takes on original and existing works, while being delivered in both English and Spanish.

Once one steps inside, it’s as if you were stepping inside a time capsule — one that holds countless stories that have been told or are calling out to be shown to an audience. Painted portraits adorn the front wall when you walk in, along with newspaper clippings, and then in the back area, 55 seats are arranged in front of the main attraction — the stage.

Pedro “Pete” Garcia, the director of the Pharr Community Theater, heralds the theater’s effort in all productions as he serves as producer, writer and even acts in the plays as well.

This past April, the PCT presented a rendition of “A Wrinkle in Time” — which is based on the 1962 young adult science fantasy novel. If that’s not your jam, the theater also performs plays that are tailored to a Rio Grande Valley audience as works are ——at moments —based in the region. “Una Huegla Singular” — “A Singular Strike” in English — is about a housewife who protests against her own family due to the abuse she faces from her family.

To say he’s a seasoned aficionado in the field is putting it lightly. Garcia puts his “all” when it comes to the PCT — from methodology, talent and pride. Similar to an inventor tinkering with their creation and ensuring it’s perfect, Garcia is doing the same for an upcoming one-act play that is set for this Saturday and Sunday — during Día de los Muertos — at the PCT.

To live to tell the tale

“The Life and Times of Juanito Gonzalez” is a one-act play which is written, directed and performed by Garcia. The work, although carried by a lone actor, has a story with lessons that are universal and will speak to those who attend.

“(It) is a play that is told in about one hour, and it’s set on Día de los Muertos, and it covers the life of a fictional character, but who is common as a Hispanic worker, father, family man, lover of familia, lover of life but he’s very relative to the Hispanic community,” the director said. “… The play follows him through when he was a 7-year-old, all the way to when he is 100 years old and dies.”

The work is not “just” a reflection of the character, Juanito Gonzalez, but as the audience takes a walk with him — who is portrayed by Garcia — they learn about Juanito’s life and choices that were made while his family adorns his cemetery plot on the holiday. A holiday in which it is traditional for families to visit a grave site of a loved one and leave gifts, sing songs and more.

From childhood to adulthood, along with the good and bad, the audience — in a sense — gets to see Juanito live his life twice as he tells tales of learning to ride a bicycle while pleading for his parents not let go, to going to college and finding love, to raising kids, the uncertainty of having a loved one going to war and much more.

The play waxes poetic on themes of life, death, choice and the journey of learning, as well as the pursuit of gaining it and see what it can offer to someone.

“And all of this is based on his quest for knowledge. (During the play, Juanito) stops to ask everybody in the audience, ‘I lived a happy life when I was alive, and do you know why?’” Garcia said, adding that there is an element of interactivity from the children and parents during the play.

The story he tells best

Garcia has a lot of practice performing this play as he’s done it for about 20 years — the first run through of the work was in ’97 over in Albuquerque after being tasked by a library director to put a performance on Día de los Muertos.

With the experience as an actor and the maturity gained throughout adulthood, he is able to tell a story that emphasizes the moral crossroads we all face in life.

“This is my master play; it’s my one-man show. So, I have a lot of experience at telling the story,” the PCT director said. “Life has hurdles and obstacles. But if you struggle and if you keep on the right path and you make the changes necessary to be happier, or to make others happier … even though it might be later in life, but you can make a change.”

This one though, hits close to home for Garcia, as some of the experiences are drawn from his life. More so, he’s had audience members from years past come visit him and thank him for the performance of the play.

“Jump back — to 12 years later from 2006 to 2018 — this teenage kid comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, Mr. Garcia,” the PCT director said.

“I said, ‘yes’ (while) finishing my show, still wearing my costume,” Garcia said. “He goes, ‘Sir, I saw your show, sir, when I was like 8 years old.’ I said ‘Oh, great.’” “And that’s why I went to college, sir, I’m in college now,” the young boy told Garcia.

Dialing back to 1997 when the play was first created and when he was tasked to write it, Garcia knew he had to center the work around life — considering that it was written near Día de los Muertos and the play takes place on the holiday.

The mystique of keeping it as a one-man show is a choice that Garcia is content to have kept.

“And it’s such a layered type of play that the other characters, like, he also mentions the girl he met in college and became his wife, by the way he speaks of her and everything, of course, that’s the magic of a one-man show, is that the actors could convey, so that you can imagine the person,” Garcia said.

When are the showings?

There are a total of three shows that will be performed on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday will have one showing at 3 p.m. and another at 7 p.m. On Sunday, the showing will be at 4 p.m.

Tickets can be bought in advance on the theater’s website at www.pharrcommunitytheater. com or at the door — upon availability. Cost is $8 for advance tickets and $10 at the door. Each show is limited to 55 seats. It is open to all ages and it will be in English, with some hints of Spanish.

Garcia said he’s committed to the mission of the PCT, which is to provide art and culture to the community. With this play, Garcia will use what he knows best — the art of storytelling — to help captivate audience members and have them taking home a life lesson or two.

“A lot of it is based on my real life, he said. “It shows about all those life experiences and decency, and just trying to do the best you can.”