New generations have transformed William Shakespeare’s plays to make his work relevant to contemporary and diverse audiences.
The Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva was formed by a group of scholars, activists, artists, and educators in 2018 to change the way his plays are taught and performed.
The Colectiva has issued two volumes of The Bard in the Borderlands, a collection of adaptations that uses Shakespeare’s masterworks to reflect the realities of the borderlands.
Kathryn Vomero Santos, associate professor of English at Trinity University, is one of the co-founders of the Colectiva.
She said the adaptations are rooted in both Shakespeare and Chicano teatro.
“Shakespeare happens to be a vehicle, a really powerful vehicle, where there are lots of resources and lots of familiarity,” she said. “But at the end of the day, these plays are really Mexican American, Indigenous, and Latinx plays — and Shakespeare happens to be an interlocutor for those types of storytelling and art forms.”
José Cruz González, professor emeritus at California State University in Los Angeles, contributed the play, Invierno — a reimagining of The Winter’s Tale.
The multilingual adaptation is set in the Mexican territory of California and features the indigenous language of the Chumash Indians.
González spoke about using Shakespeare as a framework.
“There’s a construction already there in the story,” he said. “There’s a beginning, a middle and end, and then it’s beginning to think, how do I interpret it through what I’m exploring?”
A public book launch of Volume 2 of The Bard in the Borderlands takes place Oct. 19 at the San Antonio Central Library. It features readings from the plays and a performance of a scene from This Is Not Romeo & Juliet by the Creative Arts Studio.
View a video of the reflections on the Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva conference from March 2024 below:
