Racism in the Spotlight : In the third part of his trilogy about a small Texas town, playwright Del Shores uses a real-life incident to examine bigotry

Ron Link calls it “the aunts and mommies kind of bigotry.”

“It starts very early,” the director noted. “It’s the mother with baking soda on her hands giving you a cookie and telling you not to play with ‘those colored kids.’ You get it handed off to you from the aunts you love and the grandmother you love. Later in life, you can’t believe that these people you grew up in love with could be like that.”

Del Shores knows that kind of racism well. Although he is the son of liberal Baptist missionaries, the 35-year-old playwright received massive doses of it at reunions and other family gatherings in his native Texas. He has made it the subject of his latest play, “Daughters of the Lone Star State,” which opens under Link’s direction at the Zephyr Theatre on Thursday night.

“There’s not a single slur in the play that I haven’t heard in my life,” Shores said during a recent interview. “We filmed ‘Daddy’s Dyin’ ’ (the movie adaptation of Shores’ popular play) 20 miles outside of Dallas, and we hired a lot of locals to work as extras. Oh, my God--the things that spewed out of their mouths! A lot of what they said ended up in the play.”

“Daughters” is the third play of a trilogy set in the small town of Lowake, Tex. The set started with 1984’s “Cheatin’, “ which Shores, who then thought of himself primarily as an actor, wrote as a vehicle for himself. The second play, “Daddy’s Dyin’--Who’s Got the Will?” was a huge success. It played for 21 months at a 64-seat theater in Hollywood in 1987 and 1988, and has had more than 200 productions since.

“Daughters” features one of the more memorable characters from “Daddy’s Dyin’, “ Mama Wheelis. She will be played by Molly McClure, who created the character and also played her in the film version. The play is a meeting of her weekly social club, a group of self-defined “privileged” women who think of ways to help the “underprivileged” of their town. Slander and soul-searching ensue when two outsiders attempt to join the organization.

Shores got the idea for the play when the costumer on the Kansas City production of “Cheatin’ ” took him aside to relate a personal anecdote.

“I’m a member of the Eastern Star,” she told the playwright. “We had our annual recruitment fellowship recently. It was in a large building where there were a lot of different meetings going on.

“These two black ladies strolled in, thinking they were in a different meeting. That created a lot of havoc for 10 minutes, because everybody said ‘Oh, my gosh, look who showed up.’ ”

That incident--which is recreated in the play--unlocked a number of memories for Shores, who regularly attended a black church as a child and noted that “the first girl I ever kissed was black.” Specifically, he recalled the insurmountable hurdles faced by black women students at his alma mater, Baylor University in Waco, Tex., when they tried to join a sorority.

“There’s a part of me that needed to write this play, because there’s a part of me that has to fight some of the things I grew up with,” he said. “On the other hand, I was one of five Anglo-Americans in an all-Latino high school graduating class. I was a victim of prejudice there, so I know that side of it too.”

Once “Daddy’s Dyin’ ” was up and running, Shores began work on the new play. He put it aside for several years as he worked on television projects and the film of “Daddy’s Dyin’.” Then, this spring, everything fell into place.

“I saw this window,” he said. “All of my pilots were turned down. Ron was available. I liked this theater, and it was available. So it was just the right moment.”

The right moment indeed: Rehearsals began the day the jury in the Rodney King civil rights trial began deliberations.

“I think this play found its time to come out,” Shores said. “I just think racism is on the rise.

“I was thinking at one time of opening the play out of town, and I sent it to a theater in Dallas. I got a letter back from the artistic director saying, ‘When you create characters who don’t exist anymore to make your point, it’s a dangerous thing.’ I wrote back to say, ‘What’s dangerous is the denial.’ ”

Link agreed. “People seem to be worn down about each other,” he said. “There was a facade in the late ‘80s, where people would say ‘I’m a liberal.’ Now, in their homes, I think people are in a less tolerant frame of mind.”

The combination of Link and Shores seems, at first glance, like an odd one. Link is best known for such slick, fast-moving productions as “Bouncers,” which played at the Tiffany in 1987, and “Stand-Up Tragedy,” at the Mark Taper Forum in 1989. These seem the antithesis of Shores’ more gentle work. But Link noted that he has done quite a bit of “lyrical work” out of town.

“It feels like we’ve worked together before,” Shores said. “There’s no ego involved in him saying, ‘This isn’t working, Del.’ Ron gets that this has to be subtle. It can’t be over the top. It has to be real.”

Despite the fact this is the final work of the trilogy, Shores said he is toying with the idea of writing another play set in the same town.

With the exception of his wife, who is producing the show, Shores isn’t expecting family members at the theater opening night. But he’s looking forward to having them see his latest work.

“This is the play my parents are proud of,” he said, adding that his brother, a Baptist minister, is glad he’s written a work that makes a strong moral statement. “Also, there’s not as much profanity in this one.”

Shores laughed heartily when he was asked whether there was all that much profanity in “Daddy’s Dyin’.”

“Well, you don’t realize it until you’re watching it sitting next to your mother.”

“Daughters of the Lone Star State” opens Thursday at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, indefinitely. Tickets : $18.50 - $20 . Call (213) 660-8587.