Chapter 2: Measure for Measure (dir. Bill Rauch), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2011
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.
OSF’S 2011 MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Three women, dressed as maids, clean an office space. As they clean, they sing acapella mariachi music in Spanish. They break out their instruments from their cleaning carts, and the deep-bodied sounds of strumming on a guitarrón, a large guitar, and the higher pitched vihuela, a five-string- style guitar, fill the theater. They begin singing “Ay Ay Ay Ay / Canta y no llores,” the beginning of “Cielito Lindo,” a folk nursery rhyme with a waltz rhythm that is son huasteco, a traditional Mexican style of song. One woman speaks directly to the audience: “Buenas Noches, Welcome to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Our casa es su casa. We have rules. Turn off your cell phone. Nada de texting.” The last line she speaks is entirely in Spanish: “Bueno. Muchisimas Gracias.” This moment, the opening scene of OSF’s 2011 Measure for Measure, set the tone for the whole production. This work of semi-bilingual theater foregrounded cultural and linguistic division and utilized music to create a soundscape that was both thematic and affective as well as accessible to the predominantly non-Spanish- speaking audience at OSF. (p.65-66)