Edinburgh University Press

Chapter Title: Diálogo: On Translation and Adaptation

Chapter Author(s): Henry Godinez and José Luis Valenzuela

Book Title: Shakespeare and Latinidad

Book Editor(s): Trevor Boffone, Carla Della Gatta
Published by: Edinburgh University Press. (2021)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1ns7n98.14

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 9
Diálogo: On Translation and Adaptation
Henry Godinez and José Luis Valenzuela
Facilitated by Carla Della Gatta

In this conversation, José Luis Valenzuela and Henry Godinez draw from
their extensive experience as actors, directors and theatre professors to dis-
cuss how translation and adaptation have factored into their journeys with
Shakespeare. While both artists are firmly grounded in US theatre-making
practices, both of them were introduced to Shakespeare through European
aesthetics, be it a workshop with Patrick Stewart or directing work in Europe.
These experiences helped foster an appreciation for the Shakespeare canon
and have led to both theatre-makers engaging with Shakespeare throughout
their storied careers. Still, Valenzuela’s and Godinez’s journeys speak to the
intersections of Latinx theatre and Shakespeare. It is quite literally impossible
to separate the two.

Carla Della Gatta: How did you get your start with Shakespeare?
Henry Godinez: When I was in college, as an undergraduate. The first
Shakespeare play I did was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I played Bottom. I
kind of fell in love with it. I also did The Taming of the Shrew, which was not
as pleasant of an experience. I played Baptista. But then a really cool thing
happened. I went to this tiny Catholic liberal arts university, and somehow our
professors got Patrick Stewart to do a workshop with us. I got to do a scene
playing Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew and get notes from Patrick
Stewart and listen to him talk and hung out. It was life-changing. That’s how
I got into Shakespeare.
In my last semester of graduate school, I was in a production of Richard III. I
was directed by an eccentric Romanian director named Alexa Visarion that
the school had brought in to direct in our last semester of graduate school.
He blew me away. Because he spoke so little English, he didn’t give a damn
about iambic pentameter. It was his first time directing outside the Iron
Curtain, so it was all about the passion and the subversive metaphor that he

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 on t r a nsl a t i on a nd a da p ta ti o n  113

was employing around Richard III. Consequently, in terms of performance, we

had become little acting machines and good little Shakespeare robots, little
voice and speech machines, and he would literally say, ‘No, it’s necessary for
life, for love, for art.’ That’s all he knew. All he cared about was the passion
of Shakespeare. And I loved it. It was the best thing that could have happened
to me at the end of three years.
José Luis Valenzuela: In my early years as a theatre professional, my expe-
rience with seeing Shakespeare in the United States was complicated because
I did not see the relationship Shakespeare had with a modern audience. I
was working in Chicano theatre where the audience was directly involved
with our work, and I was trying to figure out how Shakespeare spoke to us
as a community. It was not until I went to Europe to assist my mentor on
Shakespeare productions that I began to understand the immense beauty
and amazing humanity in Shakespeare’s work. Interestingly, the Shakespeare
productions we were doing were not in English­– b­ ut in German, Norwegian
and Swedish. My exposure and work on those Shakespeare productions­–
­ironically translated from their original English­– ­began my appreciation for
Shakespeare’s masterful storytelling and an amazing capacity for humanity.
Carla: A lot of your directing has been in Latinx Theatre, and your acting
with Shakespeare, at least recently. Why is it important to work in both, and
how does that affect your process?
Henry: When I was a young actor, I would do whatever people would
hire me to do. The first four years out of grad school, I did some Shakespeare.
Then in 1988, I did Romeo and Juliet at the Goodman with Michael Maggio,
with Phoebe Cates and Michael Cerveris in the leads. Then Barbara Gaines
cast me as Iachimo in Cymbeline at what is now Chicago Shakespeare Theater
(CST; then called Shakespeare Repertory). My relationship with Barb started
there, which went on to span many years and many productions. The follow-
ing year, I reprised my role as Tybalt in another production. It was Michael
Maggio’s production, set in Little Italy, in 1917/18, right after World War I. I
was Tybalt and had a moustache and wore beautiful suits. The second time I
performed it that year, we were at the Old Globe. The San Diego critic used
veiled racist comments, referring to me as the ‘hot-blooded Tybalt’, which
is typical Latino code words for a Latino actor. Like ‘fiery’ and other terms.
As a director, after starting Teatro Vista, I became focused on championing
new Latinx work. Teatro Vista did a co-production with the Goodman of
Cloud Tectonics. That went well, and eventually the Goodman asked me to
come on to the collective, and so my position at Goodman became about
championing Latinx work.
I was fortunate to direct some Shakespeare along the way, some for Barb,
some for freelance­– ­Oak Park Festival Theatre. I directed a short Romeo and
Juliet for CST at Grant Park. There were three or four summers in a row in

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114 henr y g odi ne z a nd j osé l u i s v a l e n zu e l a

the early 1990s, mid-1990s, when CST would do a free outdoor Shakespeare
in the Park, which was great because it has a huge stage for thousands of
people [in the audience]. One summer Barb asked me to co-direct Romeo and
Juliet with her. She was busy and travelling, so I did the bulk of the directing.
And then I was asked to direct A Winter’s Tale for Kansas City Rep, which
was then called Missouri Rep. At Oak Park Festival Theatre, I directed the
Scottish play. It was right after the death of Kurosawa, the Japanese film-
maker. The production was inspired by Kurosawa’s work, by Throne of Blood.
Those are some that I have done.
Carla: Does your process for engaging with Shakespeare differ from your
process with other playwrights?
José Luis: The Chicano theatre, where I began my career, had a personal
relationship with its audience. We could not create plays that would not
cultivate that vital relationship. When I approach Shakespeare or Ibsen I am
aware that I have to find an entrance to the play that engages the audience on
a human level.
The majority of the playwrights that I work with are living playwrights,
so I have a very intimate and collaborative relationship with them and their
play. From that relationship, I know what the playwright desires their play to
communicate with the audience. With Shakespeare, it is a different process
because he is not alive, and it becomes, in a way, more challenging to have
that personal intimacy because I have to investigate how Shakespeare speaks
to people in contemporary times. I do not do theatre for theatre people, I
do it for non-theatre people­– a­n audience often new to the theatre, and
that is what I am interested in as a director. When I approach Shakespeare,
I need to discover how the story and characters speak to this contemporary
audience, who may not know Shakespeare’s work. How do you incorporate
Latinx themes into a Shakespeare production/adaptation? I do not work
with adaptations of Shakespeare, I work with Shakespeare’s text. When I
use Latinx themes (which are similar to other cultures) in my productions,
they ask questions about how we get close to our own understanding of
ritual, spectacle, human emotion and understanding of our own world within
Shakespeare’s poetry.
Henry: In 2014, I played Henry, the old king, at Notre Dame Shakespeare.
When I did that, I hadn’t played Shakespeare in a long time, I hadn’t per-
formed in a long time. Most recently, last year, I played Camillo in Bob Falls’s
production of The Winter’s Tale at Goodman. I had always wanted to do a
Shakespeare with Bob. Bob had seen the production of Richard III I was in
in graduate school. When I met [him] a couple years later at Wisdom Bridge
Theatre, which he was running at that point, he told me he saw it, and thirty-
some-odd years later we finally worked together on a Shakespeare play. It was
a great experience.

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 on t r a nsl a t i on a nd a da p ta ti o n  115

I don’t pursue acting anymore; I don’t care about it that much, except
for when it comes to Shakespeare. Because it is infinitely perfectible. There
is so much possibility in it. It seems like a contradiction, but it’s this strange
dichotomy where you have structure and rules, but the real fun of playing
Shakespeare is when you can be so prepared with the rules, that you are free
to break the rules. Just like Shakespeare did. He would set up rules, and he
would break them, for emphasis. To me, that process is infinitely perfectible.
And Shakespeare taps into the most essential things about being human, that
no other playwright is able to do. There are some, for me, Latinx playwrights
that get really close, such as José Rivera and Octavio Solis. For me, I think
José gets the closest of anyone.
Carla: José Luis, how do you feel your extensive work directing Latinx
theatre and being the artistic director of a Latinx theatre informed your expe-
rience directing Shakespeare at a non-Latinx theatre company such as Oregon
Shakespeare Festival (OSF)?
José Luis: My approach to Shakespeare, Ibsen or any playwright is to
treat their play like a new contemporary play that speaks to an audience
today. My identity is Latinx, specifically Mexican, so I have a whole cultural
background that informs my work. If the play, for example, calls for a funeral,
I know how Mexicans do funerals: we cry, have music, and throw ourselves
on the floor. It is not necessary for anything to change in the text, because the
playwright is only asking for a funeral. Whatever play I direct, I am always
informed by who I am as a human being. Treating the play as a new play in a
dramaturgical sense lets me understand the humanity of the characters inside
the text. Many times I do add moments or begin the play at a different time in
order to answer the question, ‘why this production of this play at this specific
moment in time?’. I do not think that the text has to be adapted to speak to
a contemporary audience in terms of the text. I think the original text can
speak to a contemporary audience if you approach the production as if it is a
contemporary play.
Carla: And, Henry, how did you get involved in translating Shakespeare
for the 2008 bilingual Romeo and Juliet?
Henry: Chicago Shakes contacted me and asked me if I knew a playwright
that would be interested in doing a bilingual translation/adaptation. I thought
of Karen [Zacarías] right away. We had just worked on Mariela in the Desert
at the Goodman. She’s a wonderful playwright and a disciplined writer, and
she’s bilingual. We have a great working relationship, and I loved the idea
of balancing Shakespeare with a female voice. Elizabeth Peña played Lady
Capulet, and it was a wonderful experience.
I think that some gets lost in translating Shakespeare into Spanish, but not
that much. I was really proud of what Karen and I did in translating Romeo and
Juliet, and Karen did the bulk. I was more of a sounding board. I thought she

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116 henr y g odi ne z a nd j osé l u i s v a l e n zu e l a

did that beautifully, maybe it is due to her experience with [seventeenth-cen-

tury poet] Sor Juana. Like good translations of Lorca­– ­it will never be the
same. That’s why I am always thankful that I can speak English and Spanish,
because it isn’t the same.
Carla: Today, many Latinx playwrights are adapting the classics and taking
up issues not specific to the Latinx community. Is it important, even today, for
Latinx artists to focus on Latinx stories?
Henry: Like the English language, I think that Latinx theatre deserves
both extraordinary works from the canon, whether that be Spanish Golden
Age­– ­Lope de Vega, Calderón, Tirso de Molina­– ­or Federico García Lorca.
When I think of the beauty of Shakespeare in English, what Shakespeare
means to the English language, I think Lorca (with Cervantes as a close
second) is the equivalent in Spanish. Because once you speak or hear Lorca in
Spanish, you never want to hear it in English, you never want to speak it in
English. I guess speaking it is the thing. I have had the good fortune to be in a
rotating Spanish/English (Spanish one night, English one night) production
of Blood Wedding. After performing it in both languages, [you can feel that]
the Spanish is masterful. Like Shakespeare, the onomatopoetic value of the
words, the rhythm, the imagery is there. It’s just that Lorca didn’t have the
life, the opportunity, to be as prolific as Shakespeare. The plays we do have
are just amazing. And yes, Luis Alfaro and others are adapting the Greeks, as
Cherríe Moraga was doing so much earlier. Octavio [Solis]’s work is deeply
influenced by Shakespeare. You can feel it in the rhythmic quality, the poetry
of his text. The scope of his plays is very Shakespearean. A play like Santos and
Santos, it is totally Shakespearean.
José Luis: This is a complicated question because I am not a fan of
adaptations. When relying on adaptations, you have to follow Western ideals
to make the play succeed. I think there is a greater need in our community
for contemporary playwrights to tell stories that have not yet been told.
However, the importance of creating a unique voice coming from within the
Latinx community and a new approach to storytelling is still in development.
As theatre artists, we still need a lot of nurturing from the culture itself to
establish our own contemporary and relevant style. I don’t feel that we need
to borrow the structure or stories from classical texts.

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