Hamlet, Prince of Cuba by Michael Donald Edwards
This is an excerpt from Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater (2023) by Carla Della Gatta. To read it in its full context, click on the link. The book can be purchased on all major sites that sell books and it is FREE to download.
Chapter 4 - HAMLET IN FLORIDA: HAMLET, PRINCE OF CUBA
Almost forty-five years after Sheen portrayed Hamlet, actor Frankie J. Alvarez became the first Latinx actor to perform Hamlet as Latinx or Latin American in a US production or adaptation of the play, doing so in the 2012 world-premiere adaptation Hamlet, Prince of Cuba at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida. This production, which was directed and adapted by Michael Donald Edwards, had separate runs in both English and Spanish languages, with Pulitzer Prize–winning Cuban American playwright Nilo Cruz penning the Spanish-language version. The play included production elements and staging techniques that encompassed a postcolonial critique, acknowledging the legacy of colonialism and attempting to reclaim land and aspects of culture of the previously colonized. Whereas Papp created an alter ego to comment on inequities, Edwards created a setting and characters that were both colonizers and colonized, and he invoked language as a leveling agent and access point for both characters and audiences. (p.118)