Shakespeare in Latinx Communities, with José Cruz González and David Lozano

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2021

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Theater artists José Cruz González and David Lozano join us in this episode. Their conversation “On Making Shakespeare Relevant to Latinx Communities” appears in the new book Shakespeare and Latinidad. González and Lozano talk with Barbara Bogaev about adapting and translating Shakespeare, performing and directing it in ways that make it relevant to Latinx audiences, and whether the Bard has a place at theater companies working to carve out a space for Latinx voices. José Cruz González received the NEA Directing Fellowship in 1985 and the 2010 Kennedy Center National Teaching Artist Grant. His plays include American Mariachi, Sunsets & Margaritas, and The Astronaut Farmworker. He’s also a professor of Theatre Arts at Cal State Los Angeles. David Lozano is Executive Artistic Director of Cara Mía Theatre in Dallas. In 2014, he was recognized by The Dallas Observer as one of six “Masterminds of Arts & Culture.” He co-wrote and directed Deferred Action and Crystal City 1969, which was named the “Best New Play of 2009” by The Dallas Morning News. Their chapter on “On Making Shakespeare Relevant to Latinx Communities” appears in Shakespeare and Latinidad, a collection of essays in the field of Latinx theatre, edited by Carla Della Gatta and Trevor Boffone. Shakespeare and Latinidad was published by Edinburgh University Press in June 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 12, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I Understand Thee and Can Speak Thy Tongue,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help on this episode from Andrew Feliciano & Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Todd Cotham and Aaron Carpenter at fifty50studios in Dallas.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Is Shakespeare for everyone? There are people who say absolutely yes. There are people who say
0:07.1	absolutely no, and there are people in between whose job it sometimes is to split the difference.
0:19.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:23.7	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folcher's director.
0:26.7	When Carla Delagata and Trevor Buffone began collecting essays for their new book, Shakespeare and Latinidad,
0:33.7	they struck on a novel approach.
0:36.3	Rather than relying just on the kind of scholarly articles
0:39.4	one might expect to see in a book of this sort, they also reached out to theater artists.
0:45.3	The result is that, in addition to professors, you can also read what playwrights, directors,
0:51.1	actors, and vocal coaches have said about adapting and translating Shakespeare,
0:56.0	performing and directing it in ways that make it relevant to Latinx audiences,
1:01.0	and the challenges it presents to artists and spectators for whom the English language and English culture are secondary at best.
1:09.0	We love interviewing theater artists about Shakespeare,
1:12.7	so a couple of those essays really piqued our interest. The first is a conversation between
1:18.4	David Lozano and Jose Cruz Gonzalez. In the book, it's called On Making Shakespeare Relevant
1:25.2	to Latinx communities.
1:32.3	David Lozano is the artistic director of Cara Mia Theater in Dallas.
1:38.8	He specializes in writing, directing, and producing bilingual plays for the Latinx community in North Texas. Jose Cruz Gonzalez has been writing, directing, and performing plays for 50 years.
1:46.0	His work includes multiple adaptations of Shakespeare designed to bring 400-year-old English plays alive for Spanish-speaking people in the United States.
1:57.0	They came into studios in Los Angeles and Dallas to talk about the challenges and the rewards of including Shakespeare in their work.
2:05.5	Just a note for clarification.
2:07.6	During this conversation, you're going to hear an unexplained reference to Zootzut.
	...

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