Q&A with Alberto Bonilla

Q&A

Can you share about your original concept for adapting Shakespeare’s late romance, originally set in ancient Roman-occupied Britain, to a bilingual melodramatic telenovela set in the American West? What are the parallels and what are the major points of departure?

Cymbeline was actually the Shakespeare play I knew the least about, and when I read it, I was just baffled at how whackydoo crazy it is, how he’s almost making fun of himself in the entire show. I thought to myself, “Where and how can I justify somebody cutting off their head, crossdressing, all that stuff?”  And the first thing that came to mind was watching telenovelas with my mom when I was growing up. I remember there was this one telenovela where the villain had an eye patch that always matched her outfit. I had such joy in watching how they would take the emotional life to such an extreme, they would do amnesia, people’s heads blown getting off, people jumping out of cars and falling out of cliffs but surviving. And it was like, “This is so Shakespearean.” I grew up in Arizona, and I love the West, and I’m a huge fan of Sergio Leone and the Dollars film trilogy.

I would say probably the biggest parallel is the fact that at the height of the American West, which was actually only about 20 years, many of the Southern Confederates moved out west after the Civil War, and Northerners moved out west as well. There had to be some compromise, some sort of some way of coming to terms with the identity of America. I really find that still true today with what’s happening in politics, but also just what’s happening with the identity of the country and how we are. I think at the end of the play, those that don’t forgive can’t move on, which includes forgiving themselves, forgiving others. And if we can also have a bad guy with an eye patch that matches his cowboy hat, why not? Let’s do that.

For this adaptation, you are interweaving different translations of the play, contemporary English and Spanish versions. Can you share more about these translations and this act of textual interpolation?

When I was first looking at Cymbeline, it’s a big play, and I wanted to make sure we had room for music and room for fights and a lot of the drama that happens in a telenovela Western. I reached out to Alec Wild, who is an amazing artist, and asked him, “Hey, I know you have a tighter version of this script. Can I use it as a jumping-off point?” He made a perfect steak of this script—he cut it just perfectly.

And then from there, I thought, well, what if the characters that speak Spanish to each other really speak Spanish—like Cymbeline—who I’ve turned into the head of the ranchera, and the Queen is now a former Confederate soldier. Is there even a translation of it that would work? And believe it or not, on Google, I found a Spanish translation from 1863 of Cymbeline. I was so excited that the Spanish we are weaving in is a translation from a Spaniard from the same time period our play is set in. It really added a texture and reality to the play, and it just makes it juicy. I love to hear those different sounds in Spanish on stage. I think that’s so underrepresented. I think that this play is going to really represent that in the music, as well as with the text.

What are you hoping that audiences will take away from this adaptation of Cymbeline?

The first thing I want is, more than anything, for them to have a good time. I remember sitting with my mom watching telenovelas, and right before a commercial break, they always break some real massive piece of information, and then the music would rise, and my mom would say, “ah, dios mio!” The only other time I feel like that is when I would get so excited is the final duel of Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, when they quickly cut from scene to scene and moment to moment, and there’s only one gunshot. But it’s so tense, you’re so invested, the music builds, and there’s just a heightened sense of drama. I want people to have a good time. I would also love people to realize we have more in common with each other than what’s different, and when the characters all come together at the end, it really feels like an amazing soap opera. Everybody comes out with these genuine confessions, all the masks are revealed, who’s alive, who’s dead, and then they all move on forward, and they’re better and they’re forgiving. And I think that in this country right now, we need to rediscover our identity. I think that it’s a wonderful allegory for what we can be. Cymbeline ends with a note of possibility, of hope, of actually moving forward like we did back then, when finally the war was over and the country started to pull itself together, it found its identity again.

Is there anything else that you’d like readers and audience members to know about you and/or this play?

You know, I think what I would say is that if somebody is a uber-super traditionalist about Shakespeare, and really wants to see the play set in the time period with the exact language with nothing cut, this may not be the play for them. But if you’re somebody who has never experienced Shakespeare, or if you are thinking it’s a bunch of stuffy white guys running around saying words you don’t understand…  then this is absolutely the play for you. It’s so accessible that I think everybody’s going to find something to connect to. Do not be afraid of this play, come and have a good time. There’s country music, there’s boleros, there’s dancing, there’s gun fights. It’s a hootenanny.