You might expect a hint of polemic from Alvaro Saar Rios’ one-man show, One Hot Texican Summer. The subtitle, after all, is “The Summer I Found Out I Was Mexican,” which brings to mind the cruel legacy of racism and racial tension that is still part of the American experience. But this generous-spirited collection of stories and reminiscences is about the gentlest of traumas. Rios mentions the epithets he heard as a 7-year-old in the Cottage Grove neighborhood of Houston, Texas, but most of this richly detailed evening is about childhood memories that are as universal as knee scrapes and occasionally sadistic big brothers.
Told with an engaging and personable style, Texican Summer is a tour through vivid memories, but ones always channeled through the sensibility of a child. We hear about Rios’ confusion about churchgoing, where Father Lopez could never make up his mind: sit, stand, kneel, sit, kneel…. We meet Juice, an older kid with a well-crafted pompadour that “bounced when he walked.” Donny, a neighbor fond of pyrotechnic magic tricks. Tick Tock, the neighborhood friend who wore a wristwatch on each arm, one set to Houston time and one set to California time, because that was where his father lived. And we meet Rios’ “big brother,” slightly older, but a first-class compatriot and tormenter. Rios deftly plays scenes between the two boys (with the help of director Michelle Lopez-Rios), shifting point of view back and forth between them – from the one raising his fist to the other cowering beneath it. Many of the stories of Texican Summer are the adventures of two boys (older sisters are only mentioned in passing), figuring out their relationship and the world around them, one prank and argument at a time.
It’s Donny’s magic that sets the theme of these stories, for they are stories of childhood at its most magical, when emotions can turn on a dime, when rituals ruled (like a chilly can of Big Red Soda), and when occasional miracles really did seem to happen.
