Theatre of Good Intentions

Abstract

Crawling with Monsters is a documentary theatre piece by Eric Wiley (with interviews conducted by students and alumni of the University of Texas-Pan American) describing experiences of everyday violence in Reynosa, a small city just across the US/Mexico border from McAllen, Texas. Its framing device focuses on the process by which the play came to be created. It begins with a well-intentioned White professor’s desire to make a Spanish-language play for young audiences to tour towns and cities on the border between the United States and Mexico, and focuses on her emerging understanding of just how little she actually knows about the conditions in Reynosa.