LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW最新文献

• Note from the Editor
• Jacqueline Bixler, Editor

As LATR approaches its 60th year, it seems to be a good time to think about our field of study and its future. With dwindling enrollments in the Humanities, the growing tendency to replace tenure-track positions with instructorships, and the retirement of many of our colleagues, we need to do all we can to promote the teaching and study of Latin American and Latiné theatre.

Of course it’s easier to dwell on the good ‘ole days, when every few years we would descend on Lawrence, Kansas, for the LATT (Latin American Theatre Today) conference/festival started in 1982 by George Woodyard. Here we reconnected with friends and colleagues, forged new connections, attended play performances and roundtables of dramatists, and presented our own scholarly work.

While waiting for the stars to align for another LATT conference and concerned by what seemed to be a dwindling number of Latin American and Latiné theatre scholars, a few of us decided to stage a mini-LATT at this year’s Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. While this event could not compare with the earlier LATTs in scope or number of participants, we all nonetheless came away convinced and happy that the study of Latin American and Latiné theatre is still alive and thriving.

The articles in the current issue follow diverse lines of inquiry. Gustavo Carvajal centers his study on a play that María Paz González wrote following the 2015 eruption of the Chaitén volcano. The weak response of the Chilean government to the catastrophe, both in the play and in real life, points to the isolation, oppression, and abandonment of those who live in rural areas that are politically and geologically unstable. In her study of Los negros pájaros del adiós (1986), Claudia Gidi pays tribute to one of Mexico’s most complex and least understood playwrights, Oscar Liera, whose theatrical production [End Page 5] has yet to receive the critical attention that it deserves. Focusing primarily on stage directions, Gidi stresses Liera’s use of them to weave a complex web of spaces and voices. Finally, Orion Risk offers a thought-provoking study on César Enríquez’s political cabaret piece La Prietty Guoman (2016), looking at the play from the angle of trans-performance and temporality studies.

Readers will notice a new feature in this issue: an original play by Ramón Griffero and Adam Versényi’s translation of it. The decision to include a play and translation in this issue responds to the growing number of translators and translations, to the relative lack of publishing venues for theatrical translations, and to the keen interest expressed at the Kentucky mini-LATT in the theory, practice, and teaching of translation. We are keen to kn

• Prometeo, el origen
• Ramón Griffero

Por Ramón Griffero

Estrenada el 8 de noviembre de 2014

En el Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral

Santiago, Chile.

[End Page 63]

REPRESENTAN SIETE ACTUANTES

Actuante I ....... Mujer

Actuante II ....... Mujer

Actuante III ....... Mujer

Actuante IV ....... Mujer

Actuante V ....... Hombre

Actuante VI ....... Hombre

Actuante VII ....... Hombre

[End Page 64]

EL ENSAYO

Escenas de la dramaturgia del espacio— líneas atraviesan la escena— verticales—esferas.

Era una tarde que estábamos en los ensayos generales de un work in progress, a partir de una dramaturgia del espacio.

Work in progress es una creación en progreso, es decir, no está terminada. En realidad, nunca lo está, pero queda la duda que puede superarse, que faltó proceso, entienden.

Sí, pero lo que deseamos decirle es que algo fundamental nos aconteció y decidimos compartirlo.

Perdona la interrupción, era para aclarar no más, sigue.

Todo partió cuando en medio del ensayo, Rodrigo le entregó un regalo a Andrea.

EL REGALO

Un poco atrasado, espero que te guste, no lo envolví.

Qué sorpresa, gracias, es bello y muy antiguo.

Sí, es una edición del 1894, le compré un baúl a un anticuario y cuando me iba me dijo: Va con este libro, lléveselo, usted lo escogió, y pensé que era para ti.

Andrea lo levantó y comenzó a leer:

LA PIEDRA Y EL LIBRO

Que surja el canto de las ranas, el trinar de las cigarras y el aullar de los zorros, que la galaxia de Euménides me ilumine, que en leyendas trasmitidas un origen nos sea revelado y en esta noche de escenarios una de ellas vamos a relataros. Se preguntarán porqué llevo esta piedra en mis manos, que en un arado he encontrado, en ella escribí el nombre de este planeta que habitamos, cuando en tiempo ya fijado nuestra tierra desintegrada se disperse por el universo atormentado. [End Page 65] Otros seres encontrarán esta piedra grabada con la huella de un humano, así sabrán que existió un astro olvidado, aquí la dejo en espera de su futuro ya asignado.

Parece que la magnetizó el libro. ¿De qué habla?

Es Prometeo el Origen, inspirada en una obra de Esquilo.

Ella nos contagió con su entusiasmo y no logramos seguir con otra escena.

PREÁMBULO

Lle

Reviewed by:

• Pragmática del teatro y las teatralidades by Juan Villegas
• Verónica Sentis Herrmann

Desde hace algunos años, tenemos la oportunidad de atestiguar como Juan Villegas realiza un abordaje metacrítico de su propia producción investigativa. Lo [End Page 154] anterior es una rareza dentro del campo de los estudios artísticos, situación inusual que nos permite observar, a través de un proceso de reflexión aplicada, cómo la elaboración de conocimiento teórico debe analizarse también desde una visión contextuada —o historizada—, en palabras del propio Villegas. A través de este procedimiento, el autor expone la necesidad de discutir o actualizar las teorías, modificando las estrategias de análisis, al ser también estos productos culturales que responden a desplazamientos discursivos. Consecuentemente, Pragmática del teatro y las teatralidades amplía lo propuesto en La interpretación del teatro como construcción visual —editado por Gestos en el año 2000—, para trasladar el énfasis desde lo visual, sin descartarlo, hacia la “concepción del teatro como producto cultural y discurso pragmático” (14).

En las “Palabras preliminares”, el autor del libro reitera la propuesta que desde hace más de cuarenta años ha distinguido su producción: entender el teatro como un discurso situado que refleja la ideología del grupo productor, cifrado en los códigos del grupo social al que pertenece y concebido para destinatarios específicos (Villegas 1997, 2000, 2011, 2021). Lo hace insistiendo en que toda propuesta teórica responde a estrategias que deben considerarse como posibilidades y no como receta infalible, evidenciando como aspecto ineludible su aplicación y adaptación caso a caso.

El autor estructura el texto en diez capítulos. El primero, “Algunos conceptos básicos: El teatro como discurso y producción cultural”, establece las bases teóricas que cimentarán su estrategia de análisis. En él declara como presupuesto básico la condición de signo que tienen las prácticas sociales —de la cual son parte las teatralidades artísticas en tanto objetos culturales—, constituyendo signos utilizados dentro de procesos de comunicación, lo que los hace decodificables por los participantes del sistema y del contexto cultural y social.

El segundo capítulo, “De las estrategias de análisis e interpretación de textos dramáticos y teatrales”, evidencia la antes mencionada historicidad de las teorías, subrayando que estas varían según los cambios del sistema cultural que las producen e insistiendo en que las nuevas teorías no serían mejores que las precedentes, sino distintas. En el capítulo tres, “De la teatralidad, las t

• Translator’s Introduction to Ramón Griffero’s Prometheus, the Beginning
• Ramón Griffero Translated by Adam Versényi

Ramón Griffero (b. 1951) is a Chilean playwright/director with an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Essex, England, and an M.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He is the founder of Teatro Fin de Siglo and of “El Trolley” (1983–1988), which served as a space for cultural resistance during Pinochet’s military dictatorship. Griffero’s plays and productions have been essential components in contemporary Chilean theatre. He is the author of twenty plays and has directed numerous productions and “art actions.” His works have been produced and premiered in Latin America and Europe and have been translated and published in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Czech. He is the recipient of many awards, including Chile’s 2019 Premio Nacional Artes Escénicas y Audiovisuales and the Thot Prize (Cairo 1999), for his contributions to the development of contemporary world theatre. He has also published a number of essays on art and politics, in particular his book of aesthetic theory and practical exercises, The Dramaturgy of Space. Griffero has delivered lectures and led workshops at the most important Latin American and European theatre festivals, arts centers, and book fairs. He has also served as the Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Chile in Santiago, Chile (https://griffero.cl).

Prometheus, the Beginning (2014) is the eleventh of Griffero’s plays that I have translated. The translation was commissioned for Ohio Northern University’s biennial International Theatre Festival in 2017, where it was performed by an undergraduate company of actors. Griffero’s texts are frequently open-ended —providing for multiple interpretations— and volcanic. New characters, themes, and directions often surge from below in the midst of scenes, disrupting where we thought we were. [End Page 99]

Griffero’s theatrical work is imbued with the aesthetic philosophy described in his book The Dramaturgy of Space, wherein he posits that human society conceives of space primarily in terms of squares and rectangles, forms that do not occur naturally in the non-human environment. As both playwright and director, Griffero prefers the circle to the square. Both the dramatic structure of his plays and the mise en scène of his productions are highly layered, creating myriad strata as they return us to conceptual and aesthetic formulations that were present long before humans walked the earth. For Griffero, theatrical discourse is multi-layered and multivalent. Past, present, and future exist simultaneously, not as a linear progression. Ideas, dreams, and desires are

• La monja alférez: una producción del Teatro Círculo de Nueva York¹
• Natalia Soracipa

Imagina que estás entrando a una caja negra en la que esperas ver vestuarios pomposos que representen el siglo XVII y escuchar diálogos en verso difíciles de comprender, tal y como se presenciaría en muchas puestas en escena de obras áureas. Sin embargo y para mi sorpresa, el treinta de octubre de 2023, como parte de mi trabajo de investigación para el proyecto Siglo Latinx², me dispuse a documentar en el teatro Chain los ensayos tras bambalinas de La monja alférez. Ahí me encontré con un personaje de estilo neoyorquino que cantaba, mientras me miraba a los ojos y contaba las travesías de esta monja. Fue su coqueteo, sus botas de cuero con tacón alto y su chaqueta de lentejuelas lo que me dio a entender que esta vez no presenciaría una puesta en escena anticuada llena de manierismos. Día tras día, mientras yo tomaba fotos, cosía vestuarios y entrevistaba a los artistas, reafirmaba que ese personaje anfitrión, llamado “Cantante” y de género no binario, era precisamente el toque mágico de esta obra. Daniel Alonso de Santos y su equipo de trabajo le habían dado a Cantante la labor de hilar esta historia de tal forma que fuera fácil de comprender. Así, Teatro Círculo nos presenta una temática complicada y controversial que podemos seguir con claridad gracias a la mediación de Cantante, la construcción de imágenes teatrales, la comedia y la actuación espontánea de todo su elenco.

Teatro Círculo³ escogió La monja alférez para celebrar su trigésimo aniversario. Hace tres décadas que su director José Cheo Olivera, con sus artistas y colaboradores, se dedican a preservar y estimular el teatro en español en Nueva York. Asimismo, se han dedicado a apoyar el trabajo de artistas hispanohablantes en esta ciudad. Durante esos días que estuve en Nueva York, [End Page 137] fue fascinante escuchar los diferentes acentos de sus actores y colaboradores y ver cómo estos artistas de raíces diversas se unían en escena con el único fin de contar una historia y traer teatro de calidad. Mientras me sentaba en la parte de atrás del público para escuchar los versos de sus diálogos, crecía mi curiosidad por saber ¿por qué un director tan joven se había interesado en traer a escena y mantener vigente una historia de hace 500 años? Así que, mientras él revisaba que todo anduviera viento en popa en los camerinos, se lo pregunté y él me contestó lo siguiente: “[...] hay otros muchísimos autores, como en este caso Ruiz de Alarcón, que tienen textos que siendo de hace tanto tiempo, te despiertan unos sentimientos, una pasión y un fuego, que es artísticamente hablando... muy potente” (de Santos, 00:00:43–56). Por esta razón, Daniel, junto

• In Memoriam:Merlin Forster (1928–2023)
• Sandra Messinger Cypess

Dear friend, esteemed professor, and prolific scholar, Merlin Forster passed away on August 14, 2023, at the age of 95. He enjoyed a productive and by all measures a successful life, raising five children with his wife Vilda. For those of us who have been attentive readers of LATR, Merlin was much more than that brief description. He had a significant academic career, starting with his doctoral work at the University of Illinois. In 1962, Merlin returned to Illinois as an assistant professor and taught Latin American literature alongside his mentor, Luis Leal, and mentored graduate students, including George Woodyard and myself. Merlin organized and taught the first formal graduate class dedicated solely to Latin American theatre. I cannot recall the specific texts we read, but Merlin had chosen among the few well-known dramatists of the 1960s: Rodolfo Usigli, Emilio Carballido, René Marqués, Egon Wolff, and Jorge Díaz. The one play I distinctly remember reading was Un guapo del 900 de Samuel Eichelbaum. After reading that play and others, I felt comfortable enough as a second-year doctoral student to tell Merlin that I had no idea why he had chosen that play. What redeeming esthetic or political features did it have?! Surely, I thought, there were better plays. My criticism of the play and questioning of his selection became a long running joke. In those days, graduate students simply did not question the canon or the selection of readings, which were drawn from a venerated, almost entirely male-authored body of texts. When Merlin was honored with a symposium on his retirement in 1998, I revisited Un guapo del 900 and learned an interesting lesson for which I gave Merlin credit: the play was far more complex and provocative than I had realized and resonated with events in Argentine society far beyond the time in which it had been written.

Merlin taught me many things about being a college professor. Starting in the classroom, his mentoring became part of our relationship as colleagues and friends throughout the years. In those early days of the 1960s, 70s, and [End Page 145] 80s, the study of Latin American theatre was not granted as much consideration or respect as other genres. Merlin, along with his mentee, George Woodyard, established Latin American theatre as a subject of serious critical inquiry. While I was preparing a paper on French influences in the plays of Xavier Villaurrutia for possible publication, Merlin suggested I see Prof. X, a noted French professor and critic of French theatre. When I went to see Prof. X, he interrupted me and said, “who really cares about what a Mexican playwright thinks of French theatre?” I was stunned and went bac

Reviewed by:

• Katarsis: Crítica a las artes escéncias en el Perú by Rubén Quiroz Ávila
• Marin Laufenberg

Aptly named, this book allows a retrospective on theatre in Perú leading up to the 2020 global pandemic, when everything changed, including theatrical arts and production. Katarsis: Crítica a las artes escénicas en el Perú is a unique archive of Peruvian theatre, putting in print and under a magnifying glass the theatre scene in Lima and wider Perú in the time period between 2017 and 2020. Rubén Quiroz Ávila has brought together his reviews of theatre works (previously published in the on-line journal Exitosa) in this compendium. These reviews are made available to a wider audience (academic and artistic) in this book, which will not simply disappear into the ether of the Internet. Moreover, these reviews of staged performances capture unique moments in time; if one did not attend the live show, reviews often serve as the only documentation of the performance.

Quiroz Ávila includes many details in each brief review (it is a sort of organized index of references)—from the names of cast members and evaluations of their contributions to assessments of lighting, music, scenery, and costume design. Often, he uses the subjective voice of the critic (as can be expected in the genre of theatre review) when speaking about the success of a particular production, the quality of the acting, or the strength of the lighting techniques, for example. While these judgments are less universally useful, they do capture one highly knowledgeable audience member’s experience in a way that might be valuable to scholars interested in audience experience and live reception.

Quiroz Ávila broaches a wide array of theatre arts in Perú. The reviews span the scope of university theatre, independent theatre, established theatre spaces and practitioners, children’s theatre, and festivals. Common threads returned to throughout include reflections on theatrical arts and connections between the individual works and the sense of Peruvian identity. [End Page 153]

The reviews often contain moments of reflection on the art of theatre itself. For instance, in a review of a children’s theatre piece, the author examines how spectators choose their seats and the difference it makes for a spectator to be located in closer proximity to a production from the lens of access and privilege. In another review, Quiroz Ávila lists the “rights of the spectator.” In yet another, he highlights the duties of the theatre critic. He also weighs in on the role of theatre in the creation of cultural capital in Perú, seeing it as a receptacle fo

Abstract:

Óscar Liera (1946 - 1990) is undoubtedly one of the most prominent creators of the Mexican scene of the second half of the 20th century. He left us more than thirty no table dramatic works with innovative compositional forms in which the playwright displays a profound knowledge of human nature. Among them, Los negros pájaros del adiós 1986 stands out in its expression of the most elusive and problematic sides of a flawed love experience. The main purpose of this essay is to provide an account of some of the artistic forms that enabled Liera to build an unstable, dif fuse fictional world. in which the real and the unreal dreams and experiences not only coexist but also become frail and evanescent. To do this, I analyze essential elements of the textual composition, such as the construction of stage directions, the use of different temporal planes, and the presence of voices that testify in a problematic way about events not represented on stage.

Abstract:

In the Mexican political cabaret piece, La Prietty Guoman—created in 2016 and since performed across Mexico and the United States—César Enríquez embodies La Prietty, a transgender sex worker dreaming her story alongside Julia Roberts’ romantic entanglement with Richard Gere in the 1990 romcom Pretty Woman. Building on performance and temporality studies done by scholars such as José Esteban Muñoz, Jill Dolan, Christina Baker, and Elizabeth Freeman, this essay critiques La Prietty Guoman as performing strategic temporality. In so doing, this research illuminates La Prietty Guoman and advances performance studies scholarship by unpacking intersections between past, present, and future temporalities in trans-of-color theatre, thus suggesting the performative potential of strategic deployment of trans and anti-trans time. Ultimately, resisting absolute temporal divisions, La Prietty Guoman entangles a performed trans time with the anti-trans present to summon hope for the trans future.

Abstract:

This article examines the strategies employed in the play Chaitén La Pompeya (2015) by actress and playwright María Paz González to dramatize a critical performance of the May 2, 2008, eruption of the Chaitén volcano and the ensuing catastrophe for the affected communities. Specifically, it analyzes the use of the absurd as a historical genre and literary aesthetic to dramatize the inertia, isolation, and historical oblivion experienced by the surviving inhabitants in an area affected by centralist demands, power devices, and control under the dominant neoliberal market regime in Chile. Finally, this study aims to place Chaitén La Pompeya within a broader group of contemporary Chilean playwrights and collectives that have developed artistic projects critical of the economic and political ideology imposed in Chile since the last decade of the civic-military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989).