Meet the Playwrights of the Cross Cultural Adaptation Lab

Adapting El Misteri d’Elx

Several rivers of curiosity — musical, emotional, dramaturgical and historical — have led me to El Misteri d’Elx. This giant pageant, performed every year since the 13th century in the Spanish town of Elche, reenacts the story of the Assumption of Mary. Parts of it dazzle me, parts of it bore me, parts of it baffle me, parts of it offend me. But its climax, supported by some theatrical machinery (as extraordinary as it is ancient) hits me in the heart and reduces me — rather lifts me — to tears.  Somewhere along this delta of inspiration, lies my adaptation. 

King Vanya in Parenthesis (adapting from Oedipus the King et Uncle Vanya)

I propose to create a cross-cultural adaptation of two plays together, one is Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, hence the temporary title (but you can get the sense of it) King Vanya in Parenthesis. King in the title is obvious, and so is Vanya, but why parenthesis? The idea that I work with here is that in Taiwan, China, and Japan, many people use parenthesis to add on unimportant information, unrelated thoughts, and dramatic reactions (too dramatic it seems out of context, or, it’s so dramatic that it breaks away from the context of the conversation) in texting and messaging. Creating a cross-cultural adaptation of the two classics, I think, gives minoritized beings a chance to have an “old drama” that is about them, that thinks with them. I know linear genealogy is boring and not queer, but we cannot deny that sometimes it feels good to have some old stuff passed on to us. And I mean to have King Vanya in Parenthesis as that small something that travels through time and goes to a minoritarian: it feels new and it also feels old and it feels enough to be queer’s business.    

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Adapting Alice in Wonderland

It’s March 29^th, 2024, Aliyah, a young woman, visits her paternal family in Trinidad for the first time. She spends the day taking in the culture and relatives as they show her about and prepare for a special holiday, Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day. Aliyah learns of the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance of 1917 and the family ties to the political religious movement. At her aunts’ house in Carenage after a night of limin’ with her siblings and cousins, Aliyah falls asleep and dreams of a time before hers when politics ruled heavy over all forms of celebrations and a great trial takes place.

Pyramidal Love Scheme (adapting from House of Desires)

The piece that I’m working on is titled Pyramidal Love Scheme and is based on House of Desires by Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz. It’s about seven people stuck in a house during a power outage who attempt to unstitch three love triangles woven through a series of outrageous tricks. It deals with love, acceptance, and the impact of stubbornly holding on to appearances for the sake of looking good. Throw in mistaken identities and a desire of figuring out romantic relationships in the mix. The adaptation is moving away from the heteronormative context it was created in, shifting to a queer lens. Also, the characters’ background is changed from Latin-American to Afro-Caribbean, in order to live closer to my identity as a person of color.