Chicano Signifyin': Appropriating Space and Culture in El Henry

In 2011 the Tony Award–winning La Jolla Playhouse created the "Without Walls Festival," with the mission of expanding beyond the boundaries of the traditional four-walled theatre space. Since its induction, the program, which focuses on site-specific theatre, has produced two festivals and seven stand-alone productions. One of these productions took place in June 2014, when the La Jolla Playhouse joined forces with San Diego Repertory Theatre, another resident theatre in San Diego, to produce El Henry, the largest "Without Walls" production to date.

An adaption of William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Herbert Siguenza's El Henry is site-specific to downtown San Diego. El Henry takes Shakespeare's story and infuses it with a blend of post-apocalyptic, Mad Max aesthetics, and Chicana/o attitude.¹ Set in San Diego in the year 2045, every aspect of the production, from the casting to the design elements, is heavily intertwined with the aesthetics, history, and identity of the Chicano movement. Shakespeare's iambic pentameter has been replaced with Caló, a poetic blend of urban Spanish and English slang. The characters are no longer English, but are now Chicana/o: King Henry IV and Henry Percy have been replaced by El Hank (played by John Padilla) and El Tomas (played by Victor Contreras). The comic relief is now provided by Fausto (played by Herbert Siguenza) instead of Falstaff. The actors appear as Chicano vatos, who roam the space wearing the remnants of creased khakis, shell-toe Adidas, and flannels buttoned only at the top. When battle begins, football pads, repurposed tires, and steel-toe boots serve as their armor; the swords and shields of Shakespeare's play are joined by makeshift firearms and hubcaps; the horses are replaced by pristine lowrider cars. The play's climactic battle between Prince Hal and Hotspur now is between El Henry of Barrio Eastcheap and El Bravo of Barrio Hotspur, who are played by Lakin and Kinan Valdez, the sons of world-renowned Chicano playwright Luis Valdez. The set reimagines San Diego after the gringo exodus. In this world the gangs no longer run guns and drugs, but rather push water that, as Sir Blunt (played by Leandro Cano) explains, "is more valuable than gold" (Siguenza 8). The billboards advertising San Diego as "America's Finest City" are covered in Chicana/o graffiti: the tags of Fausto, El Hank, and others dominate the scenery.

The post-apocalyptic setting and aesthetic, however, do not signal an ending but, within the Chicana/o context of the play, a new beginning. The play begins with two vato scavengers clad in costumes that could best be described as Chicana/o steampunk: a mix of cloth and metal scraps, old athletic equipment, bandanas, and goggles. They are digging through the garbage of the set looking for valuables. What they uncover, however, is Fausto, who has been sleeping off the previous night's drinking. After a brief scene in which the vatos and Fausto engage in name-calling, Fausto uses his staff to chase off the vato scavengers. Fausto then does the unexpected: he turns to the audience, breaks the fourth wall, and proclaims, "Welcome to Aztlán!" From this moment on Siguenza speaks in two voices throughout the play: in the action of the play as Fausto, and breaking the fourth wall to speak to the audience as the creator of the piece.

El Henry's aesthetics position the play within Siguenza's larger history of Latina/o performance as a member of the theatre group Culture Clash, whose works have long engaged with notions of the Chicana/o identity that were established during the Chicano movement of the 1960s. El Henry, however, does not just engage with contemporary Chicana/o performance practices, but advances the art form by presenting new contexts for Chicana/o aesthetics and new ideations of the Chicana/o identity. Through its use of downtown San Diego as a site-specific location, a futuristic setting, and Siguenza's use of a double voice, El Henry advances Chicana/o performance by creating new ways of thinking about...