A college-aged man in a ball cap, a middle-aged actress and a UNC assistant professor sit behind a six-foot table, furiously strumming their air guitars.
As they mime the chords to the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” Gabriel Rivas Gomez looks on as his screenplay “Thisability” comes to life.
Tonight at 7:30, UNC’s Kenan Theatre will house Gomez’s two one-act plays — “Scar Tissue” and “Thisability” as part of UNC’s Process Series.
The Process Series provides artists a venue with which they can produce works-in-progress and get feedback from audience members about their experience watching the show.
Ashley Lucas, assistant professor of dramatic art and Artistic Director of Teatro Latino/a Series, said the Process Series is a unique opportunity for playwrights — a chance for critique on their unfinished work.
“It’s not like a poem where you can email it out and ask for feedback,” she said. “You need to see them with bodies and hear voices interpreting the roles.”
“Scar Tissue” has already achieved critical acclaim and will appear in the most recent edition of Applause Books’ “The Best American Short Plays,” which claims to have identified the likes of Tennessee Williams before he made it big.
Gomez is adding “Thisability” as somewhat of a sequel. “We’re using the same cast playing very different characters,” he said. “The two plays include similar themes used towards opposite character arcs.”
Gomez’s goal with the Process Series is to iron out any kinks in the adaptation from his mind’s eye to the audience’s.
“Writers are somewhat schizophrenic by nature in that we hear these voices in our heads,” Gomez said, “sometimes it doesn’t translate to the page.”
His partner in production is Jorge Huerta, the play’s director.
“The plays are about the human condition,” Huerta said. “Every play is about the human condition, but these plays examine deep into the soul of the human condition.”
Both of Gomez’ plays deal with human frailty, literally and metaphorically.
He said “Scar Tissue” is the story of a heart surgeon whose heart is literally and figuratively broken, while “Thisability” is about a teenaged rock star with cerebal palsy.
Gomez’s reticence was penetrated by Huerta, who swayed the writer to reveal the inspiration for ‘Thisability.’
“The plays are both very personal to me,” Gomez — whose daughter has cerebal palsy — said. “My 4-year-old, Marisol, is the biggest little rock star I know.”
But Gomez said he is not using his play as a soapbox.
“I don’t want it to have a moral. I just want it to stick with people,” he said. “That’s how I measure a play’s success — not how many pages, but how long it stays with the audience.”
See the show at Kenan Theatre Feb. 29 and March 1 at 7:30 p.m. Both performances are free.
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