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“Fair” Bianca and “Brown” Kate: Shakespeare and the Mixed-Race Family in José Esquea's The Taming of the Shrew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2019

PATRICIA AKHIMIE*
Affiliation:
Department of English, Rutgers University–Newark. Email: [email protected].

Abstract

This essay explores the world of a new production of The Taming of the Shrew, still in the earliest stages of development, that will employ non-traditional casting and re-envision Katharina (“as brown in hue / as hazelnuts”), “fair” Bianca, and their father Baptista as members of a mixed-race family. The production is conceptualized, cast, and rehearsed under the guidance of José Esquea, producer/director of the Soñadores Productions Shakespeare series (formerly of Teatro LATEA), a classical theater group that features Latinx, African American and Asian American actors, and mixed-ability casting (the combination of professional and amateur actors from the community).

Type
Forum
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2019

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References

1 Esquea, José, “A Post-apocalyptic Macbeth: Teatro LATEA's Macbeth 2029,” in Thompson, Ayanna and Newstok, Scott, eds., Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 133–35, 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 José Esquea, personal interview by Patricia Akhimie, 6 Feb. 2017.

5 Multi-facial (dir. Vin Diesel), One Race Productions, 1995.

6 Esquea, personal interview.

7 Esquea, “A Post-apocalyptic Macbeth,” 133.

8 Esquea, personal interview.

9 Esquea, “A Post-apocalyptic Macbeth,” 135, original emphasis.

10 Ibid., 134.

11 Esquea, personal interview.

15 Shakespeare, William, The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Hodgdon, Barbara (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010), 2.1.255–57Google Scholar.

16 Esquea, personal interview.

19 Barbara Hodgdon, “Casting,” in Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, 399.

20 Esquea, personal interview.

22 Esquea, “A Post-apocalyptic Macbeth,” 133, original emphasis.