Emilio Williams

This script is about to receive its world-premiere, Oct. 2023, produced by Teatro Vista and co-presented by Steppenwolf in their 1700 Theater. This new English version of "The House of Bernarda Alba" is streamlined and it enhances some of the humor in the original that gets lost in translation. I grew up with this classic, and I also, like Garcia Lorca, grew up queer in Catholic Spain. I don't think this play has yet received a proper production in the Anglo world, in part because the translations have been inappropriately literal, and in part, because the predominantly WASP casts were not able to embody the story in a way that give it justice. The world premiere of this version is directed by Wendy Mateo, and the complete designing team is femme.

Lorca never saw this play produced. He rewrote a lot, in general. And I imagine that for a world premiere of this play, he would have made a lot of changes to the manuscript that we know today. With that in mind, my goal was to reimagine how Lorca would have told the legend of Bernarda Alba in 2023.

1. Structure: Instead of a multi-act shape with waves, this new version is one act like a train speeding towards a crash.

2. Setting/Vision: This version heightens the Greek aspects of the original. And we're treating it with the same freedom we approach an Elektra or a Medea, by focusing more on the spare action and less on the language of the original. Time and space is ambiguous, mythical. This is a retelling of a legend, and in a way this is Poncia's version. Poncia and Carmelita (previously known as La Criada) being the Greek chorus. 

3. Streamlined: This show runs for 65-70 minutes. We have focused the action on what happens inside the house, eliminating a lot of the secondary plots taking place outside. The dialogue has been sharpened to be more American and anglo. We have removed a lot of repetitions and old-fashioned forms of exposition.

4. Characters/Casting: Bernarda and her mother Maria Josefa can be played by the same actress for the first time. We have underlined the generational trauma, and foreshadow that Bernarda will end like her mother and her grandmother. The character of the sister Amelia has been removed. Now the Criada has a name, Carmelita, and a bigger role. A lot of the smaller roles have been eliminated to bring the cast down to 7 actresses.

5. Humor: Most importantly, I have heightened the humor that Lorca points at in the original but that never gets played outside Spain, and almost never inside of Spain. This version, I hear, is surprisingly fun, and funny, but we still can land the full tragedy at the end. We have clearly established this humor within our own form of Spanish camp. I argue that the original was funnier than people give it credit for.

This is a reinvention of Sophocles' Elektra for an all-Latinx cast and director. It is a tragedy with moments of absurd, queer comedy. Early drafts of this play were developed with Studio Luna in Los Angeles, in collaboration with director Alexandra Meda. Studio Luna would like to find partners for a rolling world-premiere.

The play received a Fellowship Award at The School of the Art Institute. The award was judged by poet Prageeta Sharma who stated: "... I found it to be an extremely compelling and risky play. I was intrigued by its premise of a retelling of Elektra that updated itself to “examine myths of the House of Atreus for an all-Latinx cast.” I appreciated how it negotiated trans-generational social activism and social practice: themes of feminist agency, identity, trans and non-binary identity, culture, etc. in particular examining how difficult activism, politics, and discourse can be on the stage (figuring out the didactic discourse of politics alongside dramatic structures), I think. It seemed to invite us to see what contemporary theatre can hold and refresh when approaching Classicism and ancient theatre and in doing so revising its sense and scope. Overall, I liked how timely, bold, spirited, comedic, and chancy it was. At times, I wasn’t sure it was able to pull off its self-interrogation but then it was full of surprises and gestures that I realized were the point and thus artful and intentionally provocative. It was very fresh and innovative."

After a nasty divorce, Cheryl's new state-of-the-art kitchen is finally completed.The upgrade announces the start of a new era for her, her two teenagers and the house they share in suburban Chicago. Can everybody, just for once, chill and enjoy the freaking American dream?

This play starts as a demented sit-com that unravels into tragedy of American themes.

Key Words:

Dan is a middle-aged-cis-white-queen teaching theater studies at an elite university in Chicago. Karin is his non-binary, Asian grad student. And Vanessa is the Black diversity, inclusion and equity officer caught in the crossfire between these two bigger than life queer folx. Can the discord among queer activists be sublimated by humor and a timeless aesthetic reconciliation?

In the tradition of the comedy of bad manners, this farce brings to the forefront current American debates on identity, political correctness and how we can use theater to reconcile the dilemmas of a multi-cultural America.

A twenty-something actress breaks up with her partner and crashes her two sister’s quarantine. This unexpected arrival forces the three of them to observe social distancing in a one-bedroom apartment. During their isolation, they communicate via Zoom with their grandfather, an emeritus professor living in an assisted living facility.

(Please, let me know if you would like to read the script, and I will send you the latest draft)

www.emiliowilliams.com

What happens when our lives become more absurd than an avant-garde play? “Smartphones, a pocket-size farce” is a madcap comedy, both a parody and a tribute to the great theater of the absurd, and the surrealist films of Luis Buñuel, such as “The exterminating angel” and “The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.” Amelia, Bernabe, Chantal, Dagobert and their respective mobile phones impatiently await their friend Fede in a mysterious apartment. In that blurry line that separates the real world from the virtual world, nothing seems to be what it is, or is it the other way around? 60-minute show for 5 actors.