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Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Jason Hook, Photographer Dorian Serna, left, and Kenedi Doerfer, right, rehearse for "Lie of the Mind." The play's author has won a Pulitzer Prize and was nominated for an Oscar.

ASU's Drama department will begin its season Friday with the semester's first play, Sam Sheppard's "A Lie of the Mind."

The play centers around two deeply dysfunctional families driven apart by distrust and jealousy.

With abuse dividing the marriage that connects the two families, the wife moves off to be cared for by her parents, while her loathsome husband sends off a brother to look for her. The sordid tale then spirals as the brother and wife fall in love, with both families hell-bent on cutting all ties to one another.

"He (Sheppard) writes about Americana-age old, American themes glamorizing the Old West - gun fights, high noon, falling in love with your horse," associate drama professor James Worley said.

"He also writes about the American dream, and he shows that that dream is not always a reality."

The drama department at ASU puts on six productions a year: two each semester and two in the summer. Worley selected this first production, which the students will also perform in Houston at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival this year.

"I chose this one for the festival because it was a little more challenging and had more depth for entertainment value," Worley said. "We've done a variety of plays in the past, but none with characters this psychologically complex."

Students performing the work agree with Worely's assertion that this piece is more deep and dramatic than previous productions; El Paso senior Art Garcia, who plays the brother, Frankie, says that the cast and crew are ready for the challenge.

"We want to show our audience and our directors that we can do this kind of show and that we don't need to save them only for competition," Garcia said.

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival is an annual event where students from all over nation perform for an opportunity to present their play at the Kennedy Center in DC. The festival starts on a state level, 6-8 schools being selected to perform regionally and from there, the process repeats, ultimately ending in Washington, DC.

"ASU has performed at the festival for the past eight years," Worley said, explaining that there was a period when they did not perform.

"ASU has traditionally been very well represented. We performed at the Kennedy Center in the '70s."

Opening night for "A Lie of the Mind" is Friday, 8:30 p.m., in the ASU Auditorium. Tickets are $3 for students, faculty and staff, $4 for non-students and $8 for the general public.

Other performances will take place Oct. 4 and Oct. 10-11 at 8 p.m. A matinee performance will run on Oct. 5, at 2:30 p.m. For more information call (325) 942-2000.

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