Per the Playhouse’s official description, “it’s a harsh new world where Hispanics, Mexicans and Chicanos rule as the majority in this new society abandoned by Anglo America.
A Shakespearean heavy (actually, make that jefe) is going downtown and taking on a whole new sound in “El Henry,” the next production in La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls series of site-specific works.
The piece is writer-actor and Culture Clash co-founder Herbert Siguenza’s sweepingly reimagined version of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part One.” Siguenza fast-forwards the story to 2045 and sets it in Aztlan City, the hard-luck metropolis formerly known as San Diego.
Per the Playhouse’s official description, “it’s a harsh new world where Hispanics, Mexicans and Chicanos rule as the majority in this new society abandoned by Anglo America. When El Hank, the ambitious leader of all the barrios, finds his street kingdom threatened by El Tomas and his hot-headed son El Bravo, he seeks the help of his brave and charismatic son El Henry. But El Hank finds his son wrapped up with a bunch of low-life thieves and drunkards headed by the lazy Fausto.
“Written in a unique poetic cadence called Calo, which mixes urban Spanish and English slang, this world- premiere adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV, Part One’ explores the universal themes of this classic through the lens of Mexican-American machismo.”
The show goes up June 14-29 at SILO, a multi-use venue in the Makers Quarter district of downtown’s East Village. The director is Sam Woodhouse, co-founder and artistic chief of San Diego Rep, where Siguenza is artist in residence (and where his solo show “A Weekend With Pablo Picasso” was developed and remounted last year).
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