West Linn Alliance for Inclusive Community to host ‘Sube y Baja’ play reading Oct.

The West Linn Alliance for Inclusive Community invites the public to seek connection and understanding with others and attend a reading of the play “Sube y Baja.”

The free reading will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14 at the West Linn Lutheran Church. According to the alliance, the event is appropriate for kids 12 and older and adults.

The play’s writer, Francisco Garcia, of Portland, will direct the reading. “Sube y Baja” is a story about kids playing on a teeter-totter through the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Garcia’s play, though fictional, is based on the real-life Teeter-Totter Wall, which artists built along the border wall between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in 2019 to allow kids from either side of the wall to play together.

The alliance felt the story was particularly timely with border policy playing a predominant role in this year’s presidential election.

“We look for issues that we feel are relevant to our times,” alliance member Tamara Gilbert said when asked why the group chose this particular play.

She added that forms of art like theater cause people to think deeply about issues.

“When people begin to converse in an extended dialogue through a medium like a play, it lends a different image,” she said. “It’s like looking at a painting, it draws you in in a different way.”

The West Linn event will be the last reading of the play before it goes into full production with the Artists Repertory Theatre.

In the play, Gilbert hopes that attendees see the importance of building relationships and understanding with others.

“As humans we need to seek each other out in ways that break through the noise and get to deeper understanding — that’s what we hope,” she said.