2023-2024 Faculty Research Grant

Vanessa Corredera (English).

Staging Liberation: Strategies of Anti-domination in Shakespearean Performance.

My project examines 21st-century performances by Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) theatermakers that adapt Shakespeare—the man and his works—to uncover the adaptive and performance strategies that allow these theatermakers to contest pervasive forms of domination: racism, heterosexism, patriarchalism, and classism. Though theatrical performances have the potential to disrupt both social and ideological status quos, theater can just as equally serve as an instrument of oppression. This dynamic is especially true when performance intersects with Shakespeare, a signifier whose authority and cultural capital frequently depends on hierarchy and exclusion. How, then, can BIPOC theatermakers operationalize Shakespearean performance in service of social justice aims, especially when both the theater industry and the Shakespeare system are culturally understood as white property? To answer this question, I take a multidisciplinary approach, turning to the scholarship of Premodern Critical Race Studies, Shakespeare and performance studies, Shakespeare adaptation and appropriation studies, and performance studies that focus on modernity. Through these distinct yet complementary frameworks, I develop heuristics by which we can ascertain the specific aesthetic, affective, and interpretive strategies that turn Shakespearean performances like Fat Ham, Merry Wives, and Emilia into powerful tools that contest pervasive systems and ideologies of domination. Additionally, Staging Liberation places these performances in conversation with Shakespearean performances by BIPOC theatermakers prior to the 21st century to trace the legacy of such strategies. This project therefore directs attention to the vital role performance can play in determining a more ethical future for Shakespeare’s use in contemporary culture.