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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
PATRICIA AKHIMIE*
Affiliation:
Department of English, Rutgers University–Newark. Email: [email protected].
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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
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 89 - 96
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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.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

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.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

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

16 Esquea, personal interview.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

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

20 Esquea, personal interview.

21 Ibid.

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