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True story: In 1967, Julia Cortes, a schoolteacher in the poor town of La Higueria, Bolivia, talked her way into her schoolhouse, where the wounded revolutionary Che Guevara was held prisoner for two days while the Bolivian government decided what to do with him. What they decided to do was execute him.

That visit between the two was the springboard for José Rivera's "School of the Americas," which Borderlands Theater opened last weekend.

The play, tensely staged by Eva Zorilla Tessler, is Rivera's imagined conversation between Cortes and the iconic Guevara, whose image is still proudly worn on T-shirts and coffee cups around the world.

This Borderlands production features a cast that is fully committed and passionate.

Marissa Garcia's Julia was fiery, thoughtful and flirtatious. She gave the teacher a compassion that felt real and deep.

Armando Ortega's Guevara wheezed from his asthma, struggled against the restraints holding his hands and legs, and grimaced in pain from the bloody wounds in his legs. But most of all, Ortega gave Guevara a fullness that we rarely associate with the handsome, beret-wearing revolutionary.

Dwayne Palmer's creepy lieutenant, who for some reason allowed the teacher in to see Guevara, was frightening in his anger toward his prisoner.

The problems with this play lie not with this strong production, but with the script.

One would think that Guevara's last days on Earth would have consisted of more interesting dialogue than he was away from home too much, disappointing his wives, and that his mother was a great intellectual.

One longs for ideas, perspective, regrets from such a dramatic setting.

Every once in a while, Che lashes out, calling himself arrogant and foolish for his revolutionary activities in Brazil, but there was little of substance in that conversation Rivera imagined.

It seems Rivera, the Oscar-nominated writer of "Motorcycle Diaries," wanted to humanize Che and in the process made him kind of, well, dull.

Still, this taut production has some of the finest performances seen on the Borderlands stage in some time — and a Bolivian jungle set designed by John Longhofer that is quite impressive. The play, even with its shortcomings, is worth seeing.