During the crest of America's urban gang epidemic, much of the America's communities were being ravaged by a culture of death, drugs and despair. However, for Jose Casas, ASU Masters of Fine Arts student and Southern Californian native, in Baldwin Park's epicenter of gang brutality there was a safe haven where even the dominant gang bangers, and drug slangers couldn't penetrate - The Vine.
Casas, a graduate of California State's theater masters program and a participant in several theatrical productions, remembers The Vine being nothing more than an old school playground supplying the community with a slice peace in world of violence. "Nobody would mess with each other at The Vine, but two blocks down they would shoot each other," Casas says.
Now, years later, the community phenomena is the motivation behind Casas' upcoming hip-hop play bearing the same name. Casas, who is the playwright, says "The Vine" is a musical voyage through the realities of life for many American minorities. "I'm trying to tell a story that normally isn't able to be told in this form," Casas says.
"The Vine," which is set in the early '80s, follows the internal struggles of the fictitious young L.A. resident, Alex Torres, whose brother was gunned downed in a drive-by shooting. The production portrays the urban culture that surrounds Alex with a conventional play dialog intertwined with break dancing and break out sessions of rap-oriented poetry, called slam poetry.
"It is similar to a musical," says Pamela Sterling, the director of the production. Sterling, an ASU theater professor, says with a realistic script and unconventional hip-hop music approach, "The Vine" is like no other play she has ever encountered. "This script is breaking new ground," Sterling says.
Given that "The Vine" is immersed with music from hip-hop revolutionaries, such as Grand Master Flash and Roger and Zap, Casas says the play could also act as a flash into the past. "[The play] has an old nostalgia theme to it," Casas says.
However, Casas says the underlying message of the production is hope. "There are choices in life, one doesn't have to settle," he says. "But you are responsible for the choices you make." For Robert Lopez, who is performing his first lead role as Torres, the plot of "The Vine" is a reflection of his own adolescent endeavors. "So many times plays are written from the outside in, rather form a person who lived it," Lopez says in reference to Casas. "Which make this play so true."
While growing up in West Phoenix, Lopez says a life of gang activity was leading him toward self destruction. "I was headed toward a life of bangin' and slangin' and other negative things that go on in the hood," Lopez says. "I was on route to becoming another statistic." Like Torres, Lopez found an outlet to escape the life of crime and violence. When Lopez was a freshman in high school he discovered "B-Boyin' " or break dancing. "Dancing gave me an opportunity to turn negative energy into positive energy," Lopez says.
Ultimately, for Casas, who says he toned down his edgy radical writing style a bit to appeal to a larger audience for "The Vine," creating a social commentary about the life of people of color in America is something he is committed to accomplishing. He says he is trying to say something about what some Americans are going through every day. Casas says that, "If you don't have anything significant to say then why say anything at all."
Reach the reporter at matthew.garcia3@asu.edu.
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If you go... |
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'The Vine' at the Lyceum Theatre, 901 S. Forest Mall on ASU Main campus in Tempe. Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday and March 30 at 2 p.m. $14 adults; $12 seniors, faculty and staff; $5 students. 480-965-6447. |
