Theatre as a Wild Weed

Abstract

Theatre as a wild weed Teresa Marrero Years of incursion into the study of Latin American theatre and performance studies in the United States have taught me to stay clear of statements that attempt to unify, quantify, or encapsulate any understanding of knowledge. While I have participated in volumes that attempt to position various historical moments of Latin American and Latino/a theatre in the United States, my perspective has been constant: the compilation of knowledge in this field is necessarily fragmentary. To speak of Latin American theatre is to speak of the artistic production of nineteen countries that may or may not share a language. I am not only referring to the Portuguese spoken in Brazil in comparison to the Spanish spoken in most of the continent, but, for instance, also the Tzozil, the Tzeltal, and the Tojolobal (all indigenous Mayan languages) spoken in Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico. To speak of religious archetypes in Cuban theatre is to speak of an incredibly complex syncretic mix of African animism/pantheism and Spanish Catholicism, which has little to do with Rome. To speak of the Mexican American immigrant experience during the past two centuries has little to do with the political violence that has motivated the migrations of Chileans, Argentineans, or Guatemalans. Thus, in a field as enormous as the region itself, to speak of "Latin American" theatre is to use a category imposed as a mean to suggest a homogeneity that does not exist. And while my Cuban birth and Southern Californian upbringing may sensitize me to some of these issues in a particular manner, often my contact with Latin American theatre is an armchair experience from the United States. There are many difficulties faced by scholars in this area, the most evident of which is the ephemeral nature of the theatrical performance experience itself and the distance [End Page 454] at which these events take place. To ameliorate the problem of distance, US academics historically have had a serious dependency upon travel grants. This institutional support depends upon the economic solvency of the particular institution and/or the economic solvency of the state, in the case of public institutions. The overall economic health of both the United States and of Latin America (remembering that Latin America is a multiplicity of countries) plays a tremendous role in our access to firsthand participation in events. Many countries undergoing severe economic restrictions, such as Cuba since the fall of the Soviet bloc, have had to curtail their productions, host fewer international festivals, and generate fewer hard-copy publications. In fact, the disintegration of the Soviet bloc has had such an impact on Latin American political and philosophical thought that some have called it a crisis. This crisis revolves around the loss of the utopian ideals generated in the 1960s and '70s by the now tired and struggling Cuban Revolution. This important notion, however, remains generally unknown outside Hispanist circles. Historically, the most interesting developments in Latin American theatre have emerged out of political, economic, and historical turmoil taking place in the streets, in communities, and within revolutionary social contexts that are not always and immediately attended to by theatre scholars. Thus, unlike the development of US and Western European theatre, largely driven by aesthetic and theatrical concerns, Latin American and Latino/a theatre emerges out of social struggles that can be as different thematically as the immigrant's search for an ethnic identity, political torture, the historical silencing of dissident voices, and cultural identity in a still-colonized island. Within the enclave of US academia, scholars of Latin American theatre are expected to publish in "reputable, refereed" journals. Important decisions such as promotion and tenure depend upon it. Without journals, anthologies, and electronic publications, our capacity to remain viable within our chosen professions as educators, performers, and communicators is impaired. Yet the number of such journals in the US dedicated to Latin American theatre and performance studies is limited. The language restriction varies: in some journals one can publish in Spanish or Portuguese, while in others it is "English only." Language matters, affecting not only which language we publish in, but the availability of classroom texts. If we are speaking...