Shakespeare is perennial in our culture. The relevance of his works never really goes away. And once in a while, it pops up in a new way that seems all the more relevant.
That may be the case for a new volume published by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University called “The Bard in the Borderlands.” It’s a collection of Shakespearean adaptations reflecting the culture and history of this region of the world — both critiquing and celebrating the bard in the process.
This is the second volume they’ve published, and The Show spoke more about it with Center director and ASU English professor Ruben Espinosa.
Full conversation
RUBEN ESPINOSA: As you can imagine, Shakespeare has been part of teaching and cultural institutions for a long time. And so it's in the United States It's not a surprise that he made his way into particular communities and communities of color, right? And so this genealogy is very long in terms of the Chicanx community in particular.
I think a lot of it was influenced by the El Teatro Campesino and they would often use some Shakespeare in these plays from, you know, that, that took place within spaces for migrant farm workers, right? And it was, it was plays meant for resistance and to think about, you know, correcting social inequities in particular moments.
And what we often find Shakespeare in these communities and others of marginalized people is that it's used as a tool of resistance. So you would expect Shakespeare to offer certain perspectives, right, that uphold particular racial hierarchies, particular, you know, views of gendered hierarchy, right? But the plays themselves often challenge these hierarchies.
And so some of these playwrights capitalize on that. And all of the playwrights in this collection are really drawing from a long tradition that, you know, takes into account their cultures, their histories, their lived experiences, right? And really, it's using Shakespeare as a vehicle to discuss the social issues that are important to them because let's be honest, he carries quite a bit of social capital.
LAUREN GILGER: Absolutely. That's such an interesting kind of contrast. So this is the second volume of this particular anthology, you're choosing particular works each time. This time you have “TheMerchant of Venice,” “Measure for Measure,” “The Comedy of Errors,” “The Winter's Tale.” I'm familiar with some of these to a certain extent, but it does seem like there is a common theme here.
ESPINOSA: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I should say the editors of the anthology Kathryn Vomero Santos, Katherine Gillen and Adrianna Santos, all professors in the San Antonio area. So it's going to be a total of 14 plays.
The first volume had six plays and those six plays focus on probably two of the most famous of Shakespeare's plays, “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” So in some ways, adaptations of those, you might be more familiar.
This set is focusing on comedies or tragic comedies. So it's, you know, looking at a different genre and different ways of imagining the human experience. So where you would have the tragedies, looking at a kind of negative view of the human experience, right? Comedies are supposed to and on notes that are uplifting, right? That show promise, hope for a future.
But as you can imagine, even the tragic comedy type of label, right? Gestures at how these plays also engage with really important topics like racial hierarchies, like racism, anti-Semitism. And so these playwrights are tapping into some of this, too. On the one hand, fully think about just futures, right, for their own communities, but also to navigate, you know, the complexities of the lived experiences in the current moment, right? When they're writing and also when these plays are set within each particular piece.
GILGER: OK. So let's talk about what this actually looks like and sounds like when these playwrights have adapted these. Give us an example of where you might see “The Merchant of Venice” or a “Measure for Measure” take place in an anthology like this.
ESPINOSA: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the plays in volume two is “The Merchant of Santa Fe” by Ramón A. Flores and Lynn Knight. And in this play, they're imagining this place set in colonial New Mexico and really looking at a tradition of kind of crypto-Judaism in the area. And, and they're also imagining the force of the Spanish domination, right? And colonialism.
But speaking about the legacy of that to our present moment and thinking about those particular struggles, the difficulty of negotiating identity, the aspiration toward whiteness, the European is in that period, But also, you know, in, in, in the current moment. And you know, I can think of something all four plays actually in, in this second volume, I think, speak meaningfully to our present moment.
GILGER: So that's interesting. So just because they are set in the borderlands, doesn't mean it's set in present day. Are any of these set in more present day?
ESPINOSA: You do. Yeah, you have some that are set in present day Lydia G. Garcia and Bill Rauch is probably the best example. It's a “La Comedia of Errors,” based on “The Comedy of Errors.” In Shakespeare's play, right, there are these two brothers who were separated at birth and they ultimately find each other. You know, it's kind of a long story, convoluted story.
GILGER: As Shakespeare is.
ESPINOSA: That's right. I will be the first to admit that. But you know, they adapted this and thought about the brothers being separated at birth and one is very much considered a legitimate U.S. citizen and the other is not. And so it presses very hard on that issue and it has, you know, even Border Patrol agents become part of the narrative.
GILGER: That's fascinating. So, OK, so Shakespeare is so much about language as you know, obviously. Talk about the adaptation there. Like, does this sound like Shakespeare? It's multilingual, are we writing in iambic pentameter?
ESPINOSA: That's a great question. These plays do not. These adaptations are very much owning the language, setting it in particular moments but not necessarily adhering to Shakespeare's language nor elevated speech. And so in some ways, it's accessible.
The one I mentioned, “La Comedia of Errors,” that one is bilingual and I mean, truly bilingual, there's quite a bit of Spanish in there. So if you don't speak Spanish, there are large moments in that play where you might feel a little bit lost. But I mean, I think this is something I love about these adaptations is there's not a reverence for the Bard right, there, it's not seen as this kind of sacrosanct entity. It is really interrogating that, because let's be honest, I think most people who attend a Shakespeare play the first time are probably lost for the better part of the play themselves.
GILGER: In English or Spanish, right. Yeah, that's absolutely true. That makes a lot of sense. So that brings me to a question I wanted to ask, which is about sort of the, I guess the goal here. But in a more nuanced way. Like is this a critique of Shakespeare? Is this a celebration of him and sort of the infinite adaptability of his work? Is it both?
ESPINOSA: Yeah, I think it doesn't have to be an either-or dynamic and I do think that there is room for both. So it very much leans into that and in its own way celebrating Shakespeare by using Shakespeare. But let's be honest, I think a lot of playwrights often will take on Shakespeare because they know that it will sell.
It's something that will be staged. And so there is that element to it. But there's also then how do you engage with it? How do you critique Shakespeare, right. And I think by and large, every playwright is, is giving Shakespeare some, some side eye but, but also celebrating it, you know, concurrently and really drawing on the energies of what the play is for.
And this is why I love it. I mean, my own research and, you know, work on Shakespeare. I, I have focused my life on Shakespeare. I'm the president of the Shakespeare Association of America, I mean, this is, it's as geeky as it gets and that, there is in my own study of Shakespeare. I mean, I do recognize that there is ample room for criticism. The way he's been used as a tool of colonialism, the way his plays have, you know, kind of nascent forms of racist language, right? The establishment of racial hierarchy is a privileging of whiteness. And so it's important to say, look, these plays are great and there's so much of it. But look at this particular moment, right? Where there is racist language to establish beauty.
So I often think about Juliet and “Romeo and Juliet.” There's a moment where when Romeo first sees her, in fact, he describes her as a rich jewel on an Ethiopian's ear. And the idea is establishing something beautiful and light against blackness. And then he goes on to say like a, like a white dove among a troop of black crows.
Those are the moments that we don't stop to think about. What is this doing in that period? How is it imagining beauty, right? Along the lines of fairness. And more importantly, I think, how are contemporary audiences then reading that? What does a student think when he or she or they might be looking at this particular play, right? And they are not white and this kind of notion of beauty is established.
So, in their own ways, I think these playwrights based on the communities from which they are drawing the cultures and the histories and how Latinxs have been imagined or not imagined in the way that we imagine the United States are interrogating some of those issues some more explicitly, some more implicitly.
