{"title":"Introduction: Shakespeare and Latinidad","authors":"Trevor Boffone, Carla Della Gatta","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction offers a contemporary history of the intersections of Shakespeare and Latinidad, from Latinx theatre-makers to Latinx-themed productions and adaptations. Offering a history of Latinx Shakespeares as both grounded in mid-twentieth-century American theatre and situated in present-day theatrical and political contexts. The editors address how their work is informed by their participation in the Latinx Theatre Commons and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Latino/a Play Project. The introduction addresses tropes that are applied to Latinx peoples in the context of Shakespeare, including the role of Caliban in The Tempest. The introduction provides a layout of the collection in its four parts: Shakespeare in the US Latinx Borderlands, Making Shakespeare Latinx, Shakespeare in Latinx Classrooms and Communities, and Translating Shakespeare in Ashland. An alternative roadmap is provided, one that traces paths throughout the collection for those interested in acting, playwriting, directing, vocal training, and scholarship.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116130176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Diálogo: On Translation and Adaptation","authors":"H. Godinez, J. L. Valenzuela, Carla Della Gatta","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"José Luis Valenzuela and Henry Godinez draw from their extensive experience as actors, directors and theatre professors to discuss how translation and adaptation have factored into their journeys with Shakespeare. While both artists are firmly grounded in US theatre-making practices, both of them were introduced to Shakespeare through European aesthetics, be it a workshop with Patrick Stewart or directing work in Europe. Both address the need for Latinx stories and new approaches to storytelling as part of the complicated relationship to the western canon. They discuss the pleasure of working with Shakespeare’s dialogue and their careers that span a range of classics from the Spanish Golden Age, Lorca, and Shakespeare, as well as their partnership with living playwrights, and how those processes differ.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124841636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What’s with the Spanish, Dude? Identity Development, Language Acquisition and Shame while Coaching La Comedia of Errors","authors":"M. Espinosa","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0022","url":null,"abstract":"Speaking from her position as a voice and text coach of OSF’s bilingual production of La Comedia\u0000 of Errors, Micha Espinosa’s chapter discusses her experiences as they pertain to her on-going research interests in identity development, language acquisition, and shame. The production of Shakespeare, which fully embraced the spectrum of Latinx identity and language, allowed Espinosa’s bilingual identity to be seen in a way she had previously never encountered despite working professionally in the field for over two decades. Throughout her career of teaching bilingual/bicultural workshops, working, and researching the experiences of Latinx actors, Espinosa has witnessed how both second-language learners of English and Spanish struggle with the debilitating effects of shame and shame memory when it comes to working in different languages. Indeed, language ability is deeply tied to one’s identity, a fact that is evidenced in La Comedia of Errors. As this chapter details, working on a bilingual production of Shakespeare in a fully-supportive environment built on inclusion can be transformative for Latinx actors who have become accustomed to feeling shame surrounding their linguistic identities and abilities.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128843798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caliban’s Island: Gender, Queerness and Latinidad in Theatre for Young Audiences","authors":"D. Burbano","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, Burbano details her trajectory as a performer and playwright to attend to the ways in which classical training and Latinx identity intersect in children’s storytelling. She details her efforts for addressing intersectional identity, crossing gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, in her TYA play, Caliban’s Island, an appropriation of characters and stories from Twelfth Night and The Tempest. In it, she provides gender-fluid and non-gender conforming characters to engage young people across demographics, and the “monster” in the play is a society that cannot accept differences. Ultimately, Burbano argues theatre for young audiences has historically been welcoming to diverse communities, and through her work, she hopes to continue to engage young people with Shakespeare. This chapter offers a model for Latinx Shakespeares as a possibility for theatre for young audiences.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121186224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alejandra Escalante, Daniele Molina, Carla Della Gatta
{"title":"Diálogo: On Performing Shakespearean Characters as Latinx","authors":"Alejandra Escalante, Daniele Molina, Carla Della Gatta","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0021","url":null,"abstract":"In this conversation, Alejandra Escalante and Daniel José Molina tackle the nuances of portraying Shakespearean characters as Latinx actors. Although currently living in New York, they have both worked extensively for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), and they met when starring in the lead roles of OSF’s Romeo and Juliet in 2012. They shared the stage again at OSF in The Tempest (2014) and in Henry IV, Part I (2016). Their onstage relationships soon took on an offstage life, with the two marrying each other in 2018. They have both performed Shakespeare in Spanish in various roles. In this dialogue, they discuss their background with Shakespeare, the process of translating his work into Spanish, and their history with performing in plays written by Latinx playwrights.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125386315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creating a Canon of Latinx Shakespeares: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play on!","authors":"Trevor Boffone","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0018","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s (OSF) much-debated Play on! initiative which commissioned 39 playwrights to translate the Shakespeare canon into contemporary English. The work of Latinx playwrights involved in Play on! expands the confines of what a Latinx Shakespeare can be, demonstrating how these Latinx translations can become a source of inclusion in the American Regional Theatre. Notably, Play on! Tapped 7 Latinx playwrights to do this work, something that led to the groundbreaking La Comedia\u0000 of Errors, a bilingual community engagement project that saw OSF move from equity and diversity measures to legitimate inclusion of previously marginalized communities in Oregon’s Rogue Valley. This chapter examines the question of double-authorship and, specifically, what it means for Latinx playwrights to share authorship with Shakespeare.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125016974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What I Learned from My Shakespeare Staycation with Macbeth and Richard III","authors":"Migdalia Cruz","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0019","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, playwright Migdalia Cruz unpacks her process of translating Macbeth and Richard III into contemporary English as part of Play on! As a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx, Cruz was eager to become part of the Western canon in such a subversive way. Even so, this work was not without its cons, specifically the possible negative press of tinkering with such a White theatrical icon. Inevitably, Cruz--and other Play on! Playwrights--lend themselves to be compared to Shakespeare. Yet, this act doesn’t necessarily mean that contemporary playwrights take a backseat to the Bard. As Cruz details, her work as a translator doesn’t detract from Shakespeare’s drama; it only enhances it. In fact, by vibrating off of another writer’s work, Cruz explains how she came to understand her own work more deeply.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126661431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Politics, Poetry and Popular Music: Remixing Neruda’s Romeo y Julieta","authors":"Jerry Ruiz","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0016","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on Jerry Ruiz’s work directing a staged reading of Neruda’s play in 2016 as part of The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit Shakespeare program, which tours to correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and community centers throughout New York City. This unique project tried to overcome the barriers that Spanish-speaking communities potentially face in accessing Shakespeare. In the summer of 2016, following the Mobile Unit’s formula of stripped down stagings and texts, an abridged version of Neruda’s work was performed. During the rehearsal process, my collaborators and I discovered the power of music to illuminate Shakespeare’s play for Spanish-speaking audiences. Ruiz explains how interpolating well known Spanish-language songs by Violeta Parra and Luis Alberto Spinetta helped blossom the play into Mala Estrella, an evening of music and excerpts from Romeo y Julieta.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121624391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Staging Shakespeare for Latinx Identity and Mexican Subjectivity: Marqués: A Narco Macbeth","authors":"Carla Della Gatta","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter attends to Márques: A Narco Macbeth, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Stephen Richter and Mónica Andrade set in present-day Mexico. Set in the world of narcotraficantes, Della Gatta argues that Mexican subjectivity dominates only to implicate the audience’s positionality at the end. This chapter argues that Márques incorporates media and video projections as theatrical forms of mediatized equivocation. This chapter models how to attend to Latinx Shakespearean performance by attending to the Latinx soundscape, the audience’s positionality, the transposition of sorcery to Indigenous ritual practices, and gender fluidity. The chapter illuminates how Latinx Shakespearean adaptations can put a spotlight on the perception of Mexico as abject through a critique of economics and neoliberalism.","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116168546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Diálogo: On Making Shakespeare Relevant to Latinx Communities","authors":"Jose C. Garcia Gonzalez, David Lozano","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474488488.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"In this conversation, directors and community-focused artists José Cruz González and David Lozano discuss the varied ways they have appropriated Shakespeare in community settings. From community-engagement projects featuring lost Native American languages (the Chumash culture and Samala language of González’s The Winter’s Tale adaptation, Invierno) to physical theatre riffs off The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice, both González and Lozano demonstrate how Shakespeare can be remixed to become relevant to Latinx audiences today. Although the productions they discuss are distinct, they all share the same goal: to be relevant to Latinx audiences who might not otherwise see themselves represented in a traditional production of one of Shakespeare’s plays. They each discuss their involvement with distinct productions and adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. González addresses his Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) Shakespearean appropriation, Forever Poppy.\u0000","PeriodicalId":341869,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare and Latinidad","volume":"192 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114390613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}