OOTW2026: MURDER WITH MALICE

PRESENTED BY OUT OF THE WINGS

by Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda

translated by Carlos Morton

directed by Almiro Andrade

Out of the Wings returns for its annual festival of Ibero-American playwriting. Celebrating our 10th festival, we present readings of plays from five different countries, all in English translation, and in the UK for the first time.

On July 24, 1973, 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez was killed in Dallas, Texas, by police officer Darrell Lee Cain during an interrogation over a $8 burglary at a Fina gas station. Santos and his 13-year-old brother David were taken from their home in the Little Mexico neighborhood by officers Cain and Roy R. Arnold, placed in a squad car, and questioned about stealing money from a cigarette vending machine. To intimidate them, Cain played Russian roulette with Santos, pointing the gun at his head. The first pull produced a click (no bullet), but the second time the gun fired, it killed  Santos in front of his brother. Cain later claimed it was an accident, saying he thought the gun was empty.

The burglary was minor, and police records showed no fingerprints from the brothers. Cain was charged with murder with malice and convicted in 1978, sentenced to five years in prison, but served only two-and-a-half years before being paroled in 1979. Cain died in 2019; Arnold was fired but never charged.

Santos’ death sparked outrage in Dallas’ Mexican American community. On July 28, 1973, thousands marched in a “March of Justice for Santos Rodriguez. The incident became a symbol of racial injustice and police abuse, galvanizing civil rights activism in the city.

Teatro Dallas’s Artistic Director Cora Cardona commissioned Mexican playwright Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda to write the play in Spanish, which was translated into English by Carlos Morton. 

The play premiered at Teatro Dallas in 1993 under the title Santos which was later changed to Murder with Malice (Homicidio Calificando).

All plays at #OOTW2026 will be presented as staged readings.

OOTW2026 is supported by Language Acts and Worldmaking, the University of Reading, and the Instituto Cervantes London.