A.C. Jones High School senior Victor Hinojosa has come home after school for the past five weeks and yelled at his sister, bellowed at his computer, and even raged at his supper.

No, it wasn’t a case of sibling rivalry, teen angst or disobedience.

Victor was learning his lines for the school’s fall play, in which he plays a senator who schemes with his brother and sister to snatch the family fortune from their mother.

The play, The Curious Savage, was a mere 55 minutes long and was performed Tuesday and Wednesday evening at the high school theater before a small but appreciative audience.

“I could hear him yelling while he was on the computer, on myspace, and I thought to myself, ‘Who is he yelling at?’” recalled Victor’s mom, Anita Perez. “Even when we were eating he would start rehearsing. He was trying to get into character, trying to make himself sound older, sound like a much older man.”

Victor’s sister, Adriana Hinojosa, an eighth-grader, helped him recite his lines.

He and the rest of his fellow actors, apparently succeeded in their transformation from teens to adults, if the audience’s applause was any indication.

“I thought they all did a wonderful job,” said Moreno Middle School teacher Carol Cain. “I was very impressed with their acting.”

Victor, whose stage debut came his sophomore year as an elderly Latino gentleman in Novio Boy, earned his acting chops the following year in The Diviners.

This week he played the lead role of U.S. Sen. Titus Savage. He was joined on stage by Jaimee Contreras, who played the part of Mrs. Ethel P. Savage, the elderly yet devilishly clever matriarch of the wealthy Savage clan.

Jaimee has performed on stage before as a Munchkin in Coastal Bend College’s production of The Wizard of Oz but Tuesday night was her first leading role in a high school play.

“I was very, very proud of Jaimee’s performance,” high school’s drama instructor Roland Adame said after the final performance Wednesday. “She had to learn 500 lines and she was the only character who had to stay on the stage the entire play. Everyone talked to her character. So Jaimee should be commended for her performance.”

As if it wasn’t hard enough to memorize lines for one play while juggling school work, Jaimee and Victor also had to learn lines for a second play in which they are scheduled to star — two weeks from now.

Three others joined Jaimee on stage for the first time this week, but Adame said all four remembered their lines and hit their marks on cue without fail.

“We had a bad dress rehearsal before Tuesday night’s performance, but there’s an old saying on Broadway: A bad dress rehearsal means a great performance,” Adame said. “And we had a great performance. The audience really seemed to enjoy the play. They laughed when they were supposed to.”

Victor agreed that the first performance Tuesday came together.

“We nailed it,” he said prior to Wednesday’s show. “We didn’t have a great dress rehearsal Tuesday afternoon but we calmed down before the show and when we missed a line we just kept going. The audience never knew. We are really pleased with how we did and it really built up our confidence for tonight.”

Other leading roles went to Megan Gaitan, who played the senator’s oft-divorced and self-conceited sister, Lily Belle; and Joseph Tenerias, who played the senator’s subservient and conspiring younger brother Samuel.

Mitchell Knapp played Dr. Emmett and Stephanie Orozco played a nurse at the insane asylum to which the senator and his greedy siblings banished their mother in hopes of separating her from $10 million worth of bonds.

The cast was rounded out by the loonies at the asylum: Michael Carman, Tiffany Fox, Meagan Pfahier, Hannah Riley and Jason Prado.

Meagan appeared to relish her role as Fairy May, one of the nut jobs. She danced on the couch and twirled to music playing in her own head, oblivious to the machinations unfolding around her.

Her line, “We always say goodbye to the people we hate,” to the departing senator in Act 2 brought down the house.

Michael Carmen’s sight gag — sending a deck of playing cards flying into the faces of the senator and then minutes later into the face of his sister — also drew belly laughs, particularly among the younger members of the audience.

“I’m just glad no one was sitting near me because I laughed through the entire play,” High School Principal Joe Reyes said after Wednesday’s performance. “They were really very funny.”

Victor said the audience’s laughter helped the actors.

“When the audience laughs when they’re supposed to, it really helps build our confidence that we’re doing okay,” he explained after the show.

Victor’s character had several such moments. In one, he railed at his mother for sending him on a wild goose chase in search of the missing bonds supposedly buried in a greenhouse on the lawn of the White House.

He was jumped by the Secret Service and his escapade made headlines: “SENATOR TRAPPED IN WHITE HOUSE HOT HOUSE.”

Likewise, Megan’s character also drew laughs when she returned from a similar hunt at the Museum of Natural Science.

Turns out, there was no bonds inside a stuffed porpoise.

Joseph’s character discovered his mother’s sinister plan too late as well when he was nearly crushed digging beneath a chimney in a futile search of the family treasure.

“I just wanted to see how far they would go to make fools of themselves,” the elderly but-all-too lucid Mrs. Savage declared to loonies, much to the delight of the audience.

Charles Chambliss directed the play, written by John Patrick. The technical crew consisted of LeAnthony Salazar, Wriston Ricketts, Tara Smith, Lloyd Southerland and Brittany Gutierrez.

The high school drama department will perform The Last Night of Ballyhoo on Monday, Nov. 3, and Tuesday, Nov. 4, and The Bald Soprano on Wednesday, Nov. 5, and Thursday, Nov. 6.

All show times are at 7 p.m.