‘Victim of Improvisation’ in Latin America

Abstract

The history of Shakespeare in Latin America spans roughly the same two hundred years as the region’s independent life. Throughout, his works have been the object of performance, translation, and adaptation more than of academic study and discussion. This essay offers a comprehensive framework for application to future work on the subject of Shakespeare performance in Latin America. The chief theoretical tools undepinning the essay are Haroldo de Campos and Silviano Santiago’s elaborations on ‘transcreation’, ‘cultural anthropophagy’, and ‘in-betweenness’. To outline significant common factors among Shakespeare performances in Latin America’s twenty Spanish-speaking nations, the chapter discusses two examples in depth: the first, a simple but powerful Mexican adaptation called Mendoza (2011); the second, an Italian documentary of a Cuban performance called Shakespeare in Avana: Altri Romeo, Altre Giuliette (2010). These analyses suggest the strengths of other Latin American acts of performance based on the complex phenomenon called Shakespeare.