Review: West Coast premiere of ‘Goat Blood’ at Theatre Rhinoceros- by Charlsie-Kern Kruger, Theatrestorm

Eric Esquivel-Gutierrez as “Pablo” in Theatre Rhinoceros/JT Presents production of Mark-Eugene Garcia’s Goat Blood, June 25-July 19 at 4229 18th St., in San Francisco’s Castro District. Photo: Scott Sidorsky

Pablo and Owen are work buddies and drinking buddies and on one perfectly normal night they set up a rendezvous with a couple of ladies from their local bar, but Pablo has other ideas and has arranged it so that the ladies are no-shows. Pablo, sexually assertive and assuredly gay, has registered the heterosexually married Owen on his gaydar, and, being of a somewhat predatory nature, he’s planning to go in for the kill. Simple enough.
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But in Mark-Eugene Garcia’s remarkable play, nothing is simple. Everything is complicated by histories: personal, cultural and queer. This pressing history in which the two young men move as if caught in quicksand is personified by a horror: the dreaded chupacabra – the goat sucker. This legendary creature has apparently haunted Pablo since a tragedy involving the death of his younger brother when Pablo was only a teenager. Pablo is burdened with the conviction that the mysterious  death was his fault, and could have been prevented.

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The chupacabra works as a powerful metaphor for all that haunts Pablo: not just his brother’s death, not just his own fear of death, but the burden of queerness in a judgmental world, the history of colonialism, the headache of microagressions, along with all the personal demons that a man might carry in the pockets of his unconscious. It’s a busy fucking monster, this one.

Owen isn’t having any. He is, as he sees it, free, white and twenty-one. The burdens of history belong to others less fortunate. Good luck with that, Owen. The monster is strong.
As Pablo pursues his seduction, along with a secret agenda that is hard to fathom, his personal history is revealed. Owen gradually begins to suspect that something he doesn’t understand may be at work. Something scary, something  supernatural, something shamanic, something that hunts.
“Goat Blood,” you can surely gather, is quite an ambitious play, trying as it does to be simultaneously comedy, romance, horror, and rich with cultural implication. Does it succeed?

Yes, it does. Mark-Eugene Garcia has the skill to weave his threads into a tight basket that can hold it all. Once you see it, it won’t leave you alone.

I can’t say too much without spoilers but let this suffice: “Goat Blood” combines historical  commentary, horror movie intensity, comedic fun, and queer soul into one sexy stew that’ll make you sweat.

As Pablo and Owen, Eric Esquivel-Guiterrez and Casey Spiegel do not miss a trick. As the mysterious Mr. Sanchez, Adrian Nava made my skin crawl.

“Goat Blood” is wicked smart, full of delicious scares, and sexy enough to make you squirm. In a nice way. What more could you ask?

This one’s worth the trip. And no doubt, we have not heard the last of paywright Mark-Eugene Garcia. Expect more greatness to follow.
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Goat Blood” plays at Theatre Rhinoceros through July 19, 2026. For further information click here.