Hello and welcome to this, the first APGRD lecture of 2021.
I'm Justine McConnell. I'm a senior lecturer in comparative literature at King's College London
and I'm on the advisory board of the APGRD. It's in that capacity that it's my
pleasure to welcome you all here today and in particular to welcome our speaker Dr. Rosa Andújar.
Rosa is deputy director and lecturer in Liberal Arts, also at King's College London and her core
research interests split into two strands, but interrelated strands - so she's a specialist in
Greek tragedy, with a particular attention to the chorus and also in the reception of Greco-Roman
antiquity particularly in the Caribbean and Latin America and she's co-edited volumes in both these
areas. So, in 2018, 'Paths of Song: the L'yric Dimension of Greek Tragedy' was published by De Gruyter and
then last year 'Greeks and Romans on the Latin American Stage' was published by Bloomsbury.
But it's Rosa's most recent work that she's going to speak to us about today.
In September last year, 'The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro' was published - and this is
Rosa's edition of the Greek plays of Chicano playwright Luis Alfaro.
Now, Alfaro is very well known in the States, particularly among the theater-going public,
but what Rosa's done here is bring together his plays that respond to Greek drama
in one edition for the first time and in a couple of cases publishing them and making them available
to the public, in print, for the first time. So this is a terrific thing for theatre scholars and those
working on classical reception and Rosa's included an introduction to the book as a whole, but also
an introduction to each of the plays. There's a glossary which is very helpful and there is
also a really fantastic interview in the book between Rosa and Alfaro. All of which is to say,
if you haven't read it already I do encourage you to go out and read it as soon as you possibly can.
Just a word about practicalities before I hand over to Rosa. This is being live streamed on
Youtube, so if you have any questions during the talk please feel free to type them into the
chat box on Youtube, or of course at the end of the talk we'll have time for a kind of q&a and we'll
give you a moment to gather your thoughts and type your questions in then. o Rosa's going to
speak to us for about half an hour and then we'll move on to the questions. So, Rosa, thank you so
much for being here today we're really looking forward to this and I will hand over to you. Great,
thank you Justine and I'd also like to thank Fiona Macintosh and everyone at the APGRD for
the kind invitation to discuss uis Alfaro's extraordinary adaptations of Greek tragedy.
So, I'm just going to share my screen - so just bear with me a moment. Okay,
can you all see that? Yes Okay, fantastic. Great. So, in my talk today I have a simple aim:
I hope to draw your attention to the importance of Luis's plays - both to our understanding of
the reception of Ancient Greek drama and to our appreciation of 21st century American theatre.
as Justine mentioned, these plays sit at the intersection of several key areas: not only
classical reception studies and generally the long and rich afterlife of Greek drama since
antiquity, but also um Chicanx and Latinx theatrical practices in the United States.
I'm aware that many in our audience today may not be familiar with these plays, or their talented
creator, especially those of you who are tuning in from the UK and other parts of Europe, so I
hope you don't mind that my talk will begin with a brief overview. After this short introduction
the bulk of my talk will then address the three things which, in my view,
make his play so distinctive and exciting. And that is: number one, their focus on women; number two
their choruses (and yes you heard me right); third and finally their Chicanx and Latinx
dimension. So, in my discussion of these three crucial aspects, I illustrate how Alfaro
breathes new life into classical drama and how his plays chart a new direction for the long
- and rather weighty - reception history of Ancient Greek tragedy in modernity.
So I begin with this overview. So, Luis Alfaro is widely recognised as one of the most
important living American playwrights today. He is, in fact, a 'Master American Dramatist' - this was
a title that was bestowed upon him after being awarded the 2018 PEN/Laura Pels International
Foundation for Theater Award. So though I'm speaking to you today about his trilogy of
Greek plays, it is important to acknowledge from the outset that Luis is more than a playwright:
he is also a successful performer, director, filmmaker, educator, and social activist.
He has, for example, over two decades excuse me as a key player in the Los
Angeles poetry community and also touring the wider United States as a performance artist.
In fact, it was as a direct result of his work in performance art that he was honored in 1997 as the
recipient of a MacArthur 'Genius Award' - this is the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship which is awarded
to people who have demonstrated expertise and exceptional creativity in their respective fields.
He is currently an Associate Professor of dramatic writing at the University of Southern California
and both within and outside U.S. academia he has taught and mentored a multitude of playwrights,.
actors and theatre creatives. It is crucial to see him in this wider lens, so that we can not
only assess properly the huge impact that he has had and continues to have, but also so that we can
appreciate the ways in which the plays, which form the focus of my talk, continue key strands
from his earlier work as a performance artist and activist. So though his artistic
output is prolific, today I am focusing on three of his most recent plays and you'll see them listed
here. They are 'Electricidad', 'Oedipus El Rey' and 'Mojada'; each based on an ancient source text, as you can see listed.
These plays also span more than a decade of work. 'Electricidad' had its premiere in 2003 at
the Borderlands Theater in Tucson, Arizona; 'Oedipus El Rey' began as a commission in 2008
at the Getty Villa Theater Lab, but had rolling world premieres at various locations from San
Francisco to Washington D.C. in 2010, as part of the National New Play Network's 'Continued Life' program.
'Mojada' premiered in 2013 at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater, but the play was actually part
of a longer process, which began in 2012 with an earlier and different adaptation of
of 'Medea', which was 'Bruja' (the Spanish word for 'Witch') at Magic Theater in San Francisco.
Later in my talk, I will discuss the huge success that these plays have enjoyed across the United States, but for now this is useful to keep in mind as we approach his plays. So with 'Electricidad',
Luis Alfaro charts a new course for the three most popular Greek characters on the U.S. stage
since the 19th century. Whereas in 'Electricidad', he reimagines Electra as the daughter of a murdered
gang leader, who vows revenge; his Oedipus is a young man, newly released from prison, who
falls in with a bad crowd and an older widow; and his Medea is an undocumented seamstress
from Mexico, who toils endlessly to ensure the future of her son in the United States.
Now, these are ancient characters as we have never seen them, living in the 'barrios' -these
are the neighbourhoods of major U.S cities, places which are invisible to most people and in fact,
typically invisible in the wider American cultural imaginary. The printed versions of the plays in the
book, in the edition that I've curated, they're all set in the city of L.A.. 'Electricidad' and 'Oedipus El Rey' are
set in the Pico Union district of L.A., which is west of downtown and this is where Alfaro grew up.
'Mojada' takes place in east L.A.'s Boyle Heights. So, with a focus on the 'barrio' and their gangs,
prison and recidivism and journeys of migration, Alfaro's plays are dynamic and timely 21st
century adaptations of well-known Greek tragedies. As the rest of my talk will
illustrate, Alfaro does not simply transpose these classical plays into a U.S. urban context, but
rather, he assembles the structure that is provided by the Greek source text as a vehicle to convey
complex and overlooked contemporary social and political realities to wide and diverse audiences.
So now, after that brief introduction to Luis and his wonderful plays, I will now turn to what, in
my view, are the three most notable aspects. So, the first is Alfaro's focus on women. Now, Ancient
Greek tragedies are notorious for featuring strong female characters - in addition to
Electra and Medea, whom we discuss today, you are probably thinking of Antigone, who defied
the city's laws to bury her brother; or the Trojan Queen Hecuba, who faces a lifetime of slavery after
the fall of Troy; or Phaedra, who fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus. Though they were written
and performed by men in 5th century BCE Athens, the compelling portrayals of these women, created
by ancient dramatists, have resonated across history and time, captivating numerous audiences.
Now, centred on a daughter who mourns incessantly for her father, Sophocles' 'Electra' stages an
intimate and problematic familial drama, which uniquely addresses the murder of Electra's
father (Agamemnon), by her mother (Clytemnestra), which, by Greek law, must be avenged by Orestes, their son.
This is a world of adultery, deception and revenge. In Sophocles' hands, Electra becomes
a central focus of the saga after Agamemnon's death. His play stages the manner
in which the heroine directs her brother to kill their mother, to avenge their father's murder.
So, just to show you a brief picture, I'm going to now talk about what Alfaro does.
I'm going to show you an image from a 2004 production of 'Electricidad' at the Goodman Theater,
featuring Cecilia Suarez in the protagonist role and I'll come back to this later.
So, in 'Electricidad', Alfaro transposes this exploration of complicated family relations
to the cholo world, but with an additional twist. In this U.S. urban subculture,
which is typically dominated by feuding young men, Alfaro places an intense focus on its women.
Like the ancient play, his drama is centred on the two contrasting and opposed perspectives of
Electricidad and Clemencia, who is the clytemnestra character, but he inserts new female characters
which take the focus away from the mother and daughter. So, just to scroll down here, you can
just see briefly a cast list - and you will find that alfaro brings in Ifigenia (Iphegenia), who, in
the ancient source text, was the sister whose sacrifice had previously served as the motivation
for Clytemnestra's killing of her
husband, Agamemnon. Alfaro also brings in an Abuela figure. She is the mother of Agamemnon, who is
called El Auggie in Alfaro's world. So she is Clemencia (Clytemnestra)'s mother-in-law,
she's a woman of the older generation, who has also lost her husband and son to gang warfare.
The inclusion of these characters means that despite this image, focused on
Electricidad, Alfaro's spotlight is trained less directly on this compelling individual heroine
and rather he encourages us to see the wider destructive family dynamics which surround her.
In particular, Alfaro accentuates the patriarchy and the machismo of this community
and here - please bear with me, I'm just going to go back to the presentation to show you
an excerpt from the play - this is a scene where Clemencia describes what motivated her to
kill her husband. So again, I just want to remind you that, in the ancient play, Agamemnon's sacrifice of
Iphigenia is part of the motivation for Clytemnestra to kill him - but in 'Electricidad', this
has now been removed. 'La Ifi' (Ifigenia) is very much alive. So, here we have an impassioned
speech which is directed to Abuela, Agamemnon's mother and Clemencia's mother-in-law in Scene 20.
Clemencia here calls attention to the circumstances which led to her act of murder,
claiming that she should be thanked since she - quote - 'cleaned up your messes'. She suggests that
her act was conducted on behalf of all women and - here, i'll just read you the middle bit, which is in
bold - this is for you, también, for the generations of undisciplined men that have wasted our lives,
for the years that I had to sit there and watch him bully you y everyone else, for the drinks I
poured, for the dinners I made, for the parties I threw, for the money he wasted, for the love without
love that I had to make, for the niños that I had to raise, for the sacrifices that we make.
So, this poses an interesting challenge to the general code of justice to which Electricidad
and the wider cholo world subscribes, which demand
immediate vengeance. But at various points in the play, Clemencia cites
the violence and abuse that she herself experienced at the hands of her husband
and the inescapable and structural quality of this abuse, which you can also see in the final
lines, when she tells the Abuela: 'your mess, the mess you made, the mess your mother made'.
In 'Electricidad', by placing such an intense focus on women and their sufferings, Alfaro
stages a glimpse of the deeper psychological and structural life of the 'barrio' community.
Bear with me again as I show you another image -
this one is coming from the 2019 revival at Magic Theater, in San Francisco. Here we go...
let's see, just make it a little bit bigger... I hope you can see that right. So i'm going to turn to 'Oedipus El Rey',
where Alfaro similarly charts a new journey and role for Jocasta, who's Oedipus's
mother and who unwittingly marries her son. She generally stands out in the masculine world of
both Sophocles' ancient source text, as the only female character, but also in Alfaro's adaptation,
where she's the only character who exists outside the prison system.
In Sophocles' play she has a minor role, in addition to her conversations with Oedipus (in which she
unsuccessfully attempts to dissuade him from his search for Laius' murderer), her main dramatic
moment occurs when she rushes off stage in order to commit suicide after realising the truth.
In this way, she operates like many other ancient tragic heroines such as Deianeira
or Phaedra, who are seemingly brought on stage in order to die of violent death - typically killing
themselves out of shame. Though, crucially, of course, this all happens off stage. In 'Oedipus
El Rey', however, Jocasta becomes a full-fledged character, as Alfaro stages her earlier years:
from her pregnancy; to her marriage to Laius; to the manner in which she falls in love
with the newcomer Oedipus; as well as her anguish when she believes that she has lost her baby.
So in this picture you can see - I mean I'm sure you're probably cringing, because this is a picture
from the wedding of Oedipus and Jocasta. One of the most notable aspects of Alfaro's adaptation
is that it is centered on the young and up-and-coming hero. So this is Oedipus on his
journey to becoming king - something audiences ancient and modern know, but I would imagine
they have never seen - and part of this journey unfortunately involves falling in love with his mother.
So I'm just going to show you another image and this is from the 2015 production
of 'Mojada' at the Getty. I'm just going to briefly show you this picture here. I hope you can all see
it. In 'Mojada', Alfaro likewise evokes a world of women who possess the majority of the roles, just as
in 'Electricidad'. In the ancient play, apart from Medea, her nurse and the Corinthian princess for
whom Jason abandons his wife, all major speaking rules were male. For those of you
who know the play, you will know that in addition to Jason (Medea's husband who wrongs her),
Euripides featured two kings: Creon of Corinth and Aegeus of Athens. The former, who looks
forward to having Jason as his son-in-law, is the one who forces Medea out of his kingdom; whereas
the latter promises to welcome her in Athens. Now, in 'Mojada', Alfaro replaces these two roles
with the characters Armida and Josefina and here, in this picture, you can see one of them, you can
see Josefina. Medea is there in front of her sewing machine, chatting to Josefina,
whereas the figure seated in the background is Tita, who is the nurse or and chorus figure.
You can clearly see the close relationship between the two women as they trade gossip.
So this brings me to my second point: choruses. So, whereas female characters and
relationships dominate Alfaro's stages, the chorus is perhaps one of the most
distinctive features of his re-workings of Greek tragedy. Throughout both 'Electricidad' and 'Oedipus El
Rey', in particular, the viewing audience cannot escape the mediation of 'las vecinas' - they are the
neighbour women - and the chorus of prison inmates whose interventions structure the dramas.
Like their ancient Greek predecessor, Alfaro's choruses introduce both the
action and the themes of the plays, as well as commenting on the events which unfold on stage,
thus serving as a crucial link between stage and audience. Their speech and mannerisms recall those
of their fifth century Athenian counterparts. These choruses frequently finish each other's sentences,
in what can be described as a stichomythic rhythm and they often speak in one voice. The
chorus of inmates in 'Oedipus', for example, they move as an integrated whole, as they take on the role
of various characters - but are each individually called Coro (Chorus). Likewise, in various scenes the
vecinas in 'Electricidad' punctuate their utterances with the short refrain like lament 'Apoco. No me digas.'
By aligning his choruses with the various structural capabilities of the
fifth century tragic chorus, Alfaro adopts the traditional framework of Greek tragedy.
Here I will show you another image -this one is a picture of las vecinas
from 'Electricidad', from a 2016 production at Teatro Espejo in Sacramento, California.
Like their ancient greek predecessor, the chorus of las vecinas introduces both the action and the
themes of the drama, while commenting on the play's happenings. Described in the stage directions as: 'a
chorus of 'mujeres' from the hood who have seen it all and are furthermore the 'voz' (the voice)
of the city, this gossipy collective, clad in house dresses and aprons, capture the rhythms
of barrio and family life through their chatter and chisme (that is, gossip). Their
speech and mannerisms recall those of their 5th century Athenian counterpart, as I stated before.
They speak in succession and often speak in one voice. This chorus of gossipy women provide
constant reminders that the events of the stage resonate beyond the particular family,
as they gesture outward and onward beyond the play's immediate present.
Using such phrases as 'el barrio', 'our comunidad' and 'our gente' ('our neighbourhood', 'our community' and
'our people'), which extend the plays events beyond 'La Casa de Atridas' (this is the House of Atreus),
they appeal and draw attention to the welfare of the broader community.
So, just to show you another image, I'm just now switching to an image of
the chorus in 'Oedipus El Rey' from a 2012 production at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, which was
directed by Chay Yew who would later direct the play at the Public Theater in New York in 2017. Let me
just centre the image. Okay. So, similarly impressive in Alfaro's reboot of 'Oedipus' are the
functions which he gives to the chorus. As with 'Las Vecinas' in 'Electricidad' and in the same manner
as their ancient counterpart, one of the coro's main roles in 'Oedipus El Rey' is to place the action
within a larger continuum of events and contexts. This is evident from the very opening of the play,
in which the chorus of inmates - and they're wearing the usual orange jumpsuits, there's a number of
images out there on the internet of various productions, which have the chorus in
these jumpsuits. So, in the opening of the play, this chorus of inmates perform a call and response
that is centered on the question "Who got a story?". After a brief debate, the inmates request a story
about us - how we got here, how we got out and got back here, to the prison; and finally a story about
the system. So, from the outset, they frame this particular adaptation of 'Oedipus' as an example
of the devastating impact of incarceration in inner-city communities across the United States.
This is a frame that they reinforce at the end of the play, when the chorus delivers
the final words, inviting the audience to look upon the blind Oedipus as he returns to prison
Besides taking on some of the more conventional features of the ancient collective,
you know, such as contextualising events beyond the immediate family, Alfaro's chorus also displays new
performative abilities. Most impressive is the manner in which they continually embody
different characters, as the play progresses throughout Oedipus's life.
They transform themselves and take on many roles throughout the play, from ranging from 'El
Sobador', who's a masseuse who tells the prophecy of Oedipus to his anxious, expectant and pregnant
parents to the Esfinge, which is a three-headed Aztec serpent which the young hero must face.
As yo can see from this picture, from the production
at Victory Gardens, they take on the role of the elders of the 'barrio'. They are los healers,
'el mistico', 'el vocero', 'el curandero' - all of whom oedipus must defeat if he is to become the king of the 'barrio'.
At other points in the play, the chorus also provides musical and dramatic accompaniment.
This includes copying Jocasta's breathing as she's in labour - and yes, this is a scene which we
see in Alfaro's adaptation - as well as moving their heads in unison, as a parliament of tecolote owls,
to create a potent sense of foreboding and death. These performative feats not only recall the
dramatic realities of fifth century Athenian tragedy, in which two to three actors performed
all the roles, while the chorus sang and danced, but they also remind audiences that ultimately
this is a story that is told in a prison yard. So in the ancient context, understanding the
role of the chorus is tricky. They are a ritual collective - so, in festivals across
Ancient Greece, cultic songs in honour of the gods were sung and danced by a chorus, but they're also
the performative heart of drama on stage for most of the time during a tragedy.
Some have spoken of the chorus as a kind of internal audience, that mediates between the
audience and the stage - but the correlation between the Greek tragic chorus and the
fifth century Athenian viewing audience is hard to gauge. One line of argument among
scholars points to the difficulty in seeing how that would have worked. Tragic choruses
of the of the surviving corpus that we have had predominantly marginalized identities: they were
choruses of young women, of serving women, even of old men. So how could these groups actually
represent, or be said to speak for, the male viewing audience of Athenian democratic citizens?
Now, this question is of course less relevant to modern adaptations in the United States.
Helena Foley points out in her seminal book, 'Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage',
that, quote: 'American theater cannot reproduce the direct engagement between a large citizen audience
and citizen actors and chorus members which is central to Greek tragedy', end quote.
Many modern productions, as a result, eliminate the chorus, or reduce it to a single character. But in
the case of Alfaro, his choruses are central to the plays and they form a crucial part of the wider
community. The choruses' continual contextualizations forcefully ensure that a larger
Chicanx perspective is kept in audiences minds and ultimately result in a rich tapestry
of perspectives, which are apt for capturing the attention of diverse and mixed audiences.
In relating and recontextualising the Greek source text to include Chicanx realities, these choruses
assert the direct relevance of classical myth to inner city marginalized communities in the
United States. So, this brings me to my final point - and I'll go back to my slide here,
I will just share that with you. So, the third and final point has to do with their Chicanx and
Latinx dimension. So one mistake that many scholars in classics make in approaching these plays is to
examine only their relationship to the source text, without examining the ways in which these
plays are the continuation of a much wider and rich tradition - actually, I should
say, traditions in the plural of Chicanx and Latinx theatre in the United States. Now in general,
Latinx identities have been complicated since the colonization of the Americas. So, one of the
necessary strands into which Luis' plays must be placed is the lengthy and complex history of
Spanish-speaking theatre on North American soil. This is a tradition that in fact pre-dates the
United States: the first dramatic performance in the whole of North America took place near
present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. This was 'Los Moros y Los Cristianos' in 1598, an improvised
drama by the Spanish colonisers, who formed part of Juan de Oñate's expedition to Nuevo Mexico. Of
course, in the centuries, since 'Los Moros y Los Cristianos' there are multiple Spanish,
indigenous and Mexican performance traditions that flourish across the southwestern United States,
but Alfaro has drawn attention particularly to the relevance of another major tradition. This is
the Chicanx theatrical movement, which emerged alongside the 1965 farm workers strike in central California,
demanding civil rights for Mexican Americans. This was one of the first major organized theater
movements to appear on U.S soil. This is the Teatro Campesino (The Farmworkers Theater), which emerged as
an educational and community-based theater, which aimed to educate the 'Campesinos' and awaken their
social consciousness. So, Alfaro's plays are salient examples of Chicanx trauma, which
followed in the wake of El Teatro Campesino. They are set in the 'barrio' - this is a place which Luis
Valdez, who was the founder of 'El Diablo Campesino', a place he described as, quote: a microcosm
of a Chicano city, a place of dualities, a liberated zone and a prison, a place of love and warmth,
a place of hatred and violence where most of 'la rasa' live out their lives'. Now, this ambiguity of
the 'barrio', as a siloed yet sheltered space, is also present in Alfaro's plays, where the 'barrio'
is shown to be a space which persistently isolates its people, while also protecting them via intimate
familial ties and networks. Now, additionally, Alfaro includes Native American elements, especially
mythologies. Just as other Chicanx playwrights - in 'Electricidad', for example, we see multiple references
to Aztec deities, such as Coatlicue and both 'Oedipus El Rey' and 'Mojada' also engage in this wider
Mesoamerican ancestry and mythology. The use of Spanish and Spanglish and code switching
in general is also key to Chicanx theatre, much of which is still centred on negotiating
characters relationships to competing homelands, as well as articulating their complex identities.
In setting greek mythic material in 'el barrio', Alfaro in particular creates crucial
opportunities for latinx actors and theatre creatives to engage in U.S. professional theatre.
So, here I will show you - one of the real joys for me
in curating this edition was creating a production history of these plays. So, I was able
to contact many theatres and directors across the U.S., who kindly shared with me
the information for their plays list of cast members and creatives for their various productions.
As you can see, he's had productions all across the United
States. This was also a process that involved some archival material - I was able to consult
the material that the APGRD had on Alfaro, though sadly, it was a small file that was mostly
filled with material related to the 'Mark Taper Forum' production of 'Electricidad'. But for anyone seeking
to do more work on Alfaro, I've now donated a lot of the programmes and flyers and things that
I was given when creating my production history, so you will find that at the APGRD.
So this map shows the great success of these plays, marking all the cities and theatres which
have hosted productions. In addition to documenting their success, my research
into the production history has revealed the presence of many important latinx actors
who have been involved in his plays, including Yvonne Cole. She played Abuela in the 2004
production of 'Electricidad' at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Yvonne Cole is a major Puerto Rican
actress - some of you may recognise her from her recent role as Abuela (another abuela) in the TV
show 'Jane the Virgin'. Now, that same production of 'Electricidad' - I'll just show you my image again -
this is the picture that I showed in the beginning. So, that's a production of 'Electricidad'
which had Ivan Cole and also featured the Mexican actress Cecilia Suarez.
If you've seen the show 'La Casa de Las Flores' ('The House of Flowers') on Netflix, you will recognise
her. But also, you have Sabina Suniga Varela and i'll just show you the image again, briefly, of
the Getty production of 'Mojada'. She has played the lead female role in all three of Alfaro's
plays: she played Electricidad in the play's 2008 production, at the National Hispanic
Cultural Center in Albuquerque; she played Jocasta in the 2014 'Oedipus El Rey' production at Dallas Theater
Center; and Medea in 'Bruja's premiere; as well as Medea in 'Mojada', in 2015, 2017 and 2019 productions
at the Getty Villa, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage and the Public Theater.
I think this performance history is vital and draws attention
to the major gaps in representation that still exist in both U.S. theatre and in our ancient
Greek theatrical imaginary. So, Alfaro is often celebrated for, quote: 'rewriting Greek tragedy
as immigrant stories', as a New York Times headline declared following the 2019
production of 'Mojada' at the Public Theater. That is, for writing plays that seem to be designed to
draw the theatregoing public into the chicanx and latinx experience. And so, by way of conclusion,
I want to draw attention to the fact that this is not always a successful endeavour.
So, here I have a quote. This is from the interview, that is included at the end of the edition, with
Luis and he says that it has not always been easy: 'I remember the first big production of 'Electricidad'
at the Goodman Theater. The playwright Tanya Saracho, now a well-regarded television
series creator and producer, was standing in line at the box office, when a sweet old lady asked if
the play was in 'Spicanese'. She asked innocently, not aware of her own internalised racism. I remember at
the Mark Taper Forum, in L.A., a white couple walking out in the first few minutes of the play. My mentor
at the time, the artistic director Gordon Davidson, asked them why they were leaving and they simply
stated that they did not want to, quote: 'spend the evening with these people and their problems'.
On and on, I have a million stories like this, which have followed the productions around the country.
I have a simple idea that when we finally see the 'we' in these plays instead of the 'them', we will be
able to work through the real questions that the plays ask of us.' So this quote reveals not only
the racism that is deeply embedded in U.S. society, but also how the expectations of
theatregoing audiences likewise operates along racial lines. However, it is important to consider
the ways in which Alfaro translates this otherwise inaccessible theatre to diverse audiences.
Various scenes in his plays openly acknowledge the possibilities of an audience for whom
the Greek might carry no meaning and no connection, for example, when Jocasta first meets Oedipus, he
tells her that her name is beautiful, adding that, quote: 'it sounds like it has a lot of history',
to which she replies: 'yeah it's old, I don't know what it means'. Likewise, in the opening
of 'Electricidad', Las Vecinas emphasised the strangeness of the name Agamemnon.
Alfaro has repeatedly emphasised, in various interviews, that he does not bring theatre to the
community, he brings the community to the theatre and I know he has, for example, at personal expense,
bussed in folks from various local communities to see his plays when they're
showing at various theatres. So, to end, I believe that we should think of the ways in which Luis's
plays are not simply diversifying U.S. theatre, but rather form part of a crucial two-way process.
That is, you have Anglo-American audiences who might have initially been attracted to the
by the reshaping of canonical Greek texts, who ultimately learn about the structural ills
that plague chicanx and latinx communities; while also, viewers from those underrepresented
communities can see some of their own experiences validated within the confines of the theatre.
These are plays which creatively blend and carry the rich and multi-layered history of
multiple traditions: the Greek, hispanic or Spanish-speaking chicanx, latinx and also
various cultures, in the way that they channel the fraught intricacies of the chicanx and latinx
experience in the U.S. So, his Greek plays stand out as works that build upon all of these traditions
and histories, while also extending them in new and exciting directions. Thank you very much.
Fantastic, thank you so much Rosa. That was a terrific and fascinating talk and really
lovely to hear much more about this work and to see some of these images here and particularly,
your breakdown into the three major parts. We're going to give people a moment to
think of questions and our colleague, the APGRD archivist is very kindly going to post questions
here, for us to have a look at and for me to pose to you to answer. But perhaps I could just
jump in here with one of my own at the start. I think something that really struck me
when i was reading 'Mojada', is the end, really, and the different motivation, as I would read it,
for Medea's killing of their child. In some ways, I think what might be happening here
touches on what you were saying in your talk, because it would seem to me that in Euripides'
'Medea', she's driven to despair and she kills the children to take revenge on Jason.
but in Alfaro's version revenge on Jason is not really the motivating factor, right? It's
this decision by their child to assimilate, to to want to be in the United States and so that
seems to move beyond a potentially much smaller, more personal idea of revenge, to something that's
much more about what's going on in society at large, in the United States
and for Chicanx societies trying to live in the States. I wondered if
you'd agree with that reading and what you think is happening there? Yeah, absolutely, I
think one of the many things that the play gets us to do is rethink various aspects
of the original and I think you're right, cultural assimilation is key
to understanding Alfaro's spin on 'Medea'.
Everybody here at the APGRD, you probably know, everybody's aware of the long and wonderful
reception history of 'Medea', who has in various modern adaptations been held up as
an important feminist figure or there are various other adaptations that sort of stress the
otherness of her as a figure and talk about and cast Black Medeas or mixed-race Medeas.
But what's really interesting with Alfaro's 'Medea' (by the way, I mean the title) -
I think this should be acknowledged from the outset - the title is called 'Mojada' which
is a slur for a 'wetback' people who cross the Rio Grande in the U.S.
and in this adaptation, central to it is this journey of migration. Various scenes
throughout the play discuss or focus on the conflict between
maintaining a cultural sense of oneself which is very important for 'Medea' she really wants to
retain her culture, her traditions and her son - her son, who was seen as preferring,
or adopting American customs so absolutely. I think in a way Alfaro is continuing
key strands from this wider reception history of 'Medea', but he adds in this new twist,
getting us to think about what it means for Medea to be an ultimate 'other', this
migrant and what that might mean for the whole family, in terms of preserving themselves
and their cultural identities. So, it's really fascinating to think about the spotlight that
he places on migration - not just on the journey,
which is part of the story (there's a scene that flashes back to
the crossing from Mexico) - but it's really just fascinating to see the emotional
impact of of the whole migration on the family and especially on the young generation, the son,
how he wavers between Mexican and American identities. He's
shown preferring - you know, he talks about Nintendo Wii's and his Converse
(trainers) to the huaraches, the Mexican sandals.
So absolutely, I think that's a key part of this new adaptation. Great. Thank you.
Actually, also - with the wavering son - the language works very well there, right when he
switches between the the 'mom' and the 'mama' and this just
shows this poor kid, as you say, wavering between the two. We have a couple of questions here. So,
the first one is from Fiona Macintosh, who asks us: does Alfaro use choruses in his other
works? Yes. So, I've talked about the importance of the chorus and 'las vecinas' in 'Electricidad'.
So, in 'Mojada' - I guess the question is, does Alfaro use chorus in 'Mojada'? Yes,
so the nurse character, Tita, at various points in the play, takes on
a choral role, in facilitating flashbacks. But I have to say -
I think I've spoken to Luis about them - I'm very biased against these one-person choruses.
I just don't think they work as well. But of course I'm personally interested
in seeing a collective on stage and what that does with the dynamic of the theatre space,
in terms of juxtaposing that collective: their voice,
their mannerism, everything within an individual. So yes, there is a chorus in 'Mojada' - Tita.
She's kind of everywhere. It's interesting, because there's
a lot of scenes where we have characters speaking to each other and she is clearly in the background
making side comments. So, she does absolutely take on the choral function, but
in my view, these other choruses of the gossipy women in 'Electricidad' and then
also the chorus of inmates are that much more impressive. I think also, in the case of 'Oedipus
El Rey', the things that they can do on stage are really amazing, like they
also they take on these multiple roles, the when they take on the Esfinge role,
they become this three-headed serpent. So, they can move around the stage
and do all these wonderful things - but again, as I said, I am rather biased.
So, yes - I hope that answered your question. Yes, there is a chorus.
Beyond his plays or his performance works, perhaps because he engages with Greek
drama, does he also have a chorus or a collective of some kind on stage. Is it something that he's
talked about working with in particular, or does this seem to be coming from the
Greek? No, this is something that you see in the Greek plays only. What's interesting is,
in previous interviews, he has admitted to being initially drawn to the Greeks because of
the structure that they provide. I think when he was first starting out as a playwright
he was told that he needed to work on his his structure and guess
what the Greeks give you: great structure. So no, they're coming only in these three Greek plays.
But in my view, they're the one of
the most exciting modern choruses that I've seen. They just work so well, especially in the ways in
which they continue to sort of gesture outward and make these events relevant to the broader
community. I think it's brilliant. haven't really seen a chorus that works
just as well as this one. Great. Thank you. A question here from Helen Eastman, who asks whether
the plays presuppose that the audience already knows the Greek stories, or is there an
assumption that the audience are discovering the stories for the first time?
Yeah, it's a great question and I did mention this briefly, but I think maybe I didn't state it
clearly enough. I think the plays have within them the possibility of an audience that
that is not at all aware, or has not encountered, these stories. There are multiple moments
in the plays where the characters are drawing attention to these
weird names and also the fact that these names and these
stories have history, but they just don't know them. So absolutely, I think in most
of the programmes that I've seen - in building the production history - have a little synopsis
of the ancient myth for audiences. I think
a lot of places in the United States give you the programme, you don't have to buy them like you do
here in Britain. But absolutely, I think that's important. So
he's also spoken of, when adapting these plays, he has also worked closely with lots
of communities across the United States and I think he's just keen to
draw attention to these ancient stories and their connections to modernity.
But absolutely, there's no presupposition that the audiences know the plays. Great.
Thank you. A question here from Shreya Duer and she asks what has been the reception of these
plays? How can we as academics contribute to them? So the reception - I mean, it depends
what you mean by reception. I mean, a lot of them have been hugely successful, especially
'Oedipus El Rey' and 'Mojada': they've had productions at the Public Theatre in New York
and all these other major theaters in Chicago and D.C. and L.A.
So, they've been commercially successful. I was also interested - and it's something
that I think emerged from my production history - was also
their popularity across the southwest in a lot of regional theaters. So the reception
has been great, it's resonated across lots of different places
in the U.S. and they're still receiving productions.
I think the last one, that we know of, before the pandemic, was in Missouri in
January and I think there were other ones that were scheduled to be put on in other places across
the U.S. But in relation to the other question, I mean, how can we as academics
contribute to them. I think if you're someone who teaches undergraduates,
I find that undergraduates, both here in the U.K. and in the U.S. and generally anywhere
are always looking to find modern resonances of the things that they study and so, I think
in any kind of Greek tragedy class, I think it would be great to just,
maybe at the end to compare and think about the ways in which,
having studied the original source text, it would be great to just think about
or see these plays as an example of a modern adaptation that is relevant to the now
and see what students make of it. My other
motivation, I think, in creating this edition is, interestingly, only 'Electricidad'
had been published in American Theater Magazine, back in 2006, but 'Mojada' and 'Oedipus El Rey' had
never been published. But I know that a lot of l academics had been asking Luis for scripts and
he, very kindly, would give them. I was always thinking that it was
a great shame that they hadn't been published and I was thinking specifically of students.
So, yeah, I think that they're great plays to think with and students should be exposed to
that. Great. I think that's another terrific service. It's something I find very
difficult - I teach on Caribbean drama, that is quite a lot is harder to get hold of - and
your edition has made it very accessible to many people and students as well, so that's terrific.
So, a question from Christina Hill, which is: how much do you think that Greek tragic texts change,
or need to be changed, when they shift from being about the elite minority in the original to
marginalized minorities today? Well, that's an interesting question
on lots of levels. I think we should emphasise the fact that, yes,
they were about an elite minority, but they were a mythical minority in the ancient context
and then also, generally across Greek tragedy there are so
many characters who were previously queens, or had some kind of noble connection, but then
fall. I'm thinking of Hecuba and the Trojan Women, who are now in this other position. But they
are mythical, so I don't want to build any sort of false equivalence. But in terms of
how to make them relevant, I think - well here at Oxford a couple of years ago we
saw a production of Medea which not very much was changed but that was a
BAME production that was done by Khameleon Productions. I think
there's a podcast, here on the APGRD website, by my friend Fran Amewudah and Shiv Shah.
So, I think in that production, they didn't change
very much and that play was able to resonate quite strongly with students
and underrepresented communities at the University of Oxford.
It's a tricky question. I don't think they can be changed very much. I mean, Alfaro
does draw our attention to the fact that these
plays can work in these different contexts. But I mean, they are adaptations: they
work as Chicanx dramas - you can include elements like the Esfinge,
you can transform the sphinx, which we see in ancient plays;
you can transform various elements and make it work in this new context.
But in general, I don't think the texts need to change very much to represent
the experiences of multiple people. I think you can probably plant them, or transpose them, into lots
of different contexts. Great. If you have time for another two questions. Perhaps you have another
two lined up and then we can thank you. So, from Maria Cecilia de Miranda:
do you have any information about the reception of Alfaro in Latin American Spanish and Portuguese
and she's also just wondering about a possible parallel with 'Electra Shock' by Jose
Maria Muscari. Thank you. Thank you, Cecilia. Cecilia is coming to us live from Brazil. How
early is it over there? Thank you for joining. So, are you asking specifically whether
these plays were able to resonate, or able to be seen or be known in Latin
America? That's a great question and in fact, that's something that I need to look into.
So, thinking specifically about 'Electricidad,' it was first produced or premiered in
2003 in Borderlands Theater in Arizona, but the
Goodman Theatre production of 2004 and the
Mark Taper Forum production in 2005
I think would have been... I mean,
it depends who was watching them. It is quite possible that some notable figures in Latin
American theatre, maybe were in L.A. or Chicago and may have watched it. I'm thinking also,
someone like Cecilia Suarez - whom I mentioned, who's a prominent Mexican actress - and who was
in 'Electricidad' in the 2004 Goodman Theater production. It is quite likely - I don't know whether
it would influence, or has a connection with 'Electra Shock' from Jose Maria
Muscati in 2005, that you mentioned. But it is also interesting,
the name 'Electricidad' works so well because it means 'electricity' in Spanish,
so 'Electra Shock' seems to be speaking to that name, but maybe it could have just been
a happy coincidence. Brilliant. Perhaps as a final question - we have one from Alison Middleton,
who asks about the New York Times article where they describe Alfaro's work as rewriting the
ancient plays rather than adapting them or staging them. Alison asked whether that's a term Alfaro
uses for his own process, or if that's basically the media interpreting it as this phrase 'rewriting'.
Thank you. I think he has used multiple words to describe them. I don't think he ever
says he's staging them, because they're not actual productions of the sort you know:
of Euripides' 'Medea' or Sophocles' 'Oedipus Rex'. I think
he's used 'versions', 'adaptations', I think maybe even 'rewritings'. I don't know,
I think the headline was probably produced by the New York Times headline people.
But it is just interesting, I think, just to have that question, because generally
when it comes to the plays that are adapted, the vocabulary is still
rather fluid. I mean, we have all these different ways of referring to things that are
fundamentally different from the source text, but we want to still
highlight the relationship that they have with the source text.
I call them adaptations because I think, as a word, adaptation is something
that at least emphasises the many things that Luis Alfaro has done to
transform them into something different, that resonates beyond the original source text.
Thank you. Exactly, fantastic. Well Rosa, thank you so much for your talk. Also, as Rosa mentioned,
the materials are now available via the APGRD - or prehaps not right now during
the pandemic - but will be available again once we can open up. So thank you very much for them
and thank you to everyone who's tuned in today and also to Claire Barnes for her work
with the questions and the technical help and of course to Fiona and everyone at the APGRD.
We're delighted that everyone could be here. Thank you, Rosa. Thank you. Bye.