Outside Theatre: Alliances That Shape Mexico by Stuart A. Day

Abstract

Reviewed by: Outside Theatre: Alliances That Shape Mexico by Stuart A. Day Christina Baker Day, Stuart A. Outside Theatre: Alliances That Shape Mexico. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2017. 223 pp. Outside Theatre: Alliances That Shape Mexico is an impressive recent contribution to contemporary Mexican theater. Recounting "but it was a trip to Medellín, Colombia, that shook me from my cynical view that the social power of art is [End Page 699] passé at best" (158), Day evokes connections between the violent Escobar-run era of Colombia's history with what some call Mexico's current "Narco State." Inspired by the efforts that re-invigorated Medellín, Day hopes that Mexican theater actors, producers, and dramaturges can transform the nation beyond the performance space. To do this, he suggests that outside the space and time of theater production is where the action happens, but for these changes to be long-lasting and successful, they require allies. For Day, these allies and alliances take the form of scholar-practitioners in the United States, students on both sides of the border, public figures (politicians and stars alike), and, of course, spectators. The book is comprised of five chapters that critically and thoughtfully examine a series of theater pieces, productions, and reception. While almost all of the pieces were staged during the twenty-first century, the chapters follow a broad chronological development that reflects Mexico's tenuous relationship with its past, something that seems to be ever-present in contemporary memory. Moreover, all five chapters weave together an impressive and ambitious series of references that capture Day's deep knowledge of Mexico's cultural idiosyncrasies, sinister cartographies, historical figures, and contemporary debates. The first chapter explores a 2002 staging of the piece, 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, by Flavio González Mello. The overarching theme situates the sacred image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in dialogue with the figure of the clown, or jester, and politicians. Day seamlessly describes the way Mello's piece, set in nineteenth-century Mexico, revives the figure of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier "who sought a more egalitarian, pre-Columbian origin for the apparition of the Virgin" (35), but with a humorous twist, a la Brozo the Creepy Clown, contemporary television personality (33). He also draws parallels between moments of political transition from General Iturbide to Mexico's first president, Guadalupe Victoria, and another foundational moment, the 2000 election of PAN candidate, Vicente Fox. Tackling the topic of the Virgin as an example of continued colonialism, racism, and conservatism in contemporary Mexico, Day points out that humor has always been a valuable tool for holding public officials accountable for erasures, what he refers to as the theatricality of politics. Chapter two continues to interrogate politics as performance in Federico Gamboa's piece La venganza de la gleba (1905), which tells of rich hacienda owners living in Paris grappling with illegitimacy, inevitable love, and social class. Inspired by a political cartoon from the late nineteenth century proclaiming, "Ya te conozco mascarita," Day reads the mask Gamboa donned throughout the Porfiriato in conjunction with James C. Scott's Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Gamboa's departures from the naturalism of Émile Zola, as Day suggests, reveal his struggles to fit the mask he wore; Gamboa constantly negotiated Catholicism and uncertainty of the economic inequality of the Porfiriato. Day proposes that this piece "held a mirror up to a Mexican audience of 1905" while also interrogating Gamboa's position of complicit power (77). At first glance, this step back in historical time seems out of sync, yet Day forges connections between the fall of Porfirio Díaz in relation to the fall and rise of the modern Mexican PRI. [End Page 700] The final chapters of the book examine negotiating boundaries in and out of theater, abuses on the US/Mexican border, and the role of academics to inspire change. Chapter three considers the 2010 Mexico City staging of the seminal Chicano theater piece, Zoot Suit, in relation to the controversial passing of Arizona immigration law SB1070. Day outlines the complex overlapping spaces, outside agitators, and chronologies that bridge the Sleepy Lagoon murders of the 1940s, as...