Hyde Park’s My H-E-B Shows Humanity, Explored

Like the store, in this work the people matter

Reviewed by Cat McCarrey, Fri., June 14, 2024

Left to right: Janelle Buchanan as Loretta, Kenah Benefield as Wilson, and Giselle De La Rosa as Mandy (courtesy of Hyde Park Theatre)

Food, water, shelter. The basic human needs. Hunger, thirst, protection. Basic human urges. And, at least in Texas, H-E-B fulfills them all. In My H-E-B, playwright Raul Garza plays with human needs. Not just for fresh groceries, but the deeper yearnings those groceries reveal. As one character states, H-E-B is “the perfect place to satisfy all kinds of hunger.” Hunger for food, for acceptance, for connection. All appear in the imagined aisles.

My H-E-B began life as an award-winning short play from 2015’s FronteraFest. It’s an unsurprising winner, with a deeply local setting and effective monologues. Garza stretches his play from 22 to 77 minutes, keeping the monologuing structure but diving deeper into character study.

It’s a sparse three-person cast: the crotchety older Loretta (Janelle Buchanan), the food-loving Mandy (Giselle De La Rosa), and the chipper-but-belabored stocker Wilson (Kenah Benefield). They are opposites in their views and approaches to life, but share love for H-E-B. Garza uses them to closely examine people, making a statement about universal commonality. They have different food tastes, experiences, and values, but the current beneath it all is the grocery store as a place of safety.

The elderly Loretta may grouse about how things have changed since back in her day, but beneath the crusty exterior is the fact that she’s sad because she cares. Buchanan plays her as a True Texan™, full of salty sweetness. Providing food for her family has been a touchstone. The ability to craft frugal meals is a point of pride. This H-E-B has been a bastion of community for her through the ages, and she misses the simplicity of being able to provide.

Mandy’s segments made my stomach growl, as she lovingly described her delectable recipes, switching from English to Spanish so naturally and deliciously it only enhanced the descriptions. Some were handed down from her mama, some discovered through her own gastronomic exploration. But again, the through line was love. Love of food, love of the freedom and adventure it gives, love of the chance to fly against expectations and get lost in flavor. To her, H-E-B is a reliable resource fueling this essential part of her persona. It provides the food that makes her, and her entire life, full.

Wilson, who stocks the shelves, plays the voice from the inside. Benefield threads the needle between genuine love and excitement for H-E-B’s people-forward mission. He doesn’t sugarcoat the nastiness of the job, the messes and arguments and tediousness. But he also shows there’s some hope. When he talks about his advancement from bagger to his current position, it feels like a bygone era, where jobs provided actual opportunities for growth in-house. Again, there’s that feeling that H-E-B is taking care of him, just as it cares for us all.

For the majority of the play’s run time the three exist in isolation. One enters, speaks, then exits as the next character emerges. There are brief crossovers, particularly toward the end. It’s a shame there’s no real interaction until that point. It makes sense with where the story goes in the conflict, which only works because we know who these characters are and where they’ve been, but it would have been so beautiful to see these talented performers bounce off each other.

All this occurs in a clever space that captures the feel of H-E-B, with perfectly painted logos on the walls, plastic refrigerator strips on the stage door, and sparse props crafted from paper bags. Set designer Mark Pickell and painting/prop designer Lilly Percifield built an H-E-B haven. It’s all complemented by sound designer Robert S. Fisher’s interstitial music built around register beeps and ambient noise.

My H-E-B is still clearly a short play made long, an elastic stretched a little too tight. But in that tension are deep truths, crafted words that skillfully illustrate characters who spark with life. They just need more plot to fully show their stuff. Still, audiences won’t walk away hungry.