Rodolfo Usigli Research Articles

Inherited Revolution. Narratives in Transgenerational Memory Transfer

AbstractOur essay deals with narratives of social upheaval that act as vehicles for transgenerational memory transfer. We look at narratives of collectively experienced processes of emancipation and the subsequent possibility of remembering things not experienced firsthand under the prism of the political event of revolution understood as an inherently violent process (Arendt 1990). In this context, we inquire about postmemory along similar lines to those staked out by Marianne Hirsch, while also considering whether the term can be separated from trauma and linked to other emotional responses of comparable affective intensity. Memories of violence are frequently disjointed and impressionistic. The connection of fragments to a narrative context is often severed while the action of linking the threads into a coherent narrative faces vehement resistance. In principle, this is not different from the experience of violence in revolutions and their remembrance. However, narratives on revolution tend to exert a strong force of attraction upon their recipients. Considering the figures ofcycle,linear progression,iteration,disruptionandirreversibilityas the time modes of revolution, we look at how these have enabled entirely new understandings of time since the nineteenth century. New forms of temporality, in turn, are entangled with the roledisplacementplays in the relationship between a transgenerational transfer of narratives and the construction of narrative time.In order to explore how a generation deals with the dominance (Hirsch 2012) of the narratives transmitted to them by the preceding one, we deal with two models in which affective states charged with both suffering and pleasure are developed into terms of cultural and literary theory: Bini Adamczak’s reading ofdesireas fetish in post-revolutionary Soviet Russia, and Svetlana Boym’s work onnostalgiaas an emotional disposition characteristic for modernity. Taking into account that both models are more or less constructed by cultural practices, historical events, and transformations in the history of ideas, and thus cannot always be precisely distinguished from one another, we present two main narrative strategies: The reception of the stories of one generation by another involves either contracting the affective intensity of their narratives at the expense of linear time or expanding narrative time far beyond individual life spans. For our analysis we mainly refer to Rodolfo Usigli’sEnsayo de un crimenand Heinrich Heine’sLudwig Börne: A Memorialas post memory narratives on revolution. We understand them as examples of each narrative strategy and as part of the dialectic of this way of remembering.

Locating the Impolitical in American Theatre: Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Schechner’s Dionysus in 69

This article examines the meaning of the ‘impolitical’ regarding cases of impolitical theatre and associated critical discourse, with reference to Rodolfo Usigli and Raymond Williams, among others. It is argued that ‘impolitical’ theatre represents social relations from the standpoint of the ideal of culture. The analysis starts with Richard Schechner’s critique of the original Broadway production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and discusses this play, segueing into The Performance Group’s Dionysus in 69. The author indicates the differences of theatre practice between the examples chosen, and shows that these theatres nevertheless participate in the same form of theatrical representation as they broach similar social questions of moment in the Unites States in the 1960s. John Yves Pinder has recently received his PhD from the University of Leeds. He is currently teaching at Leuphana University of Lüneberg.

Corona de sombra: historia, identidad y transformación en un teatro de máscaras

The plot of Corona de sombra by Rodolfo Usigli exhibits a circular trajectory: it begins and ends in an “invented” present for the visit of the historian Erasmo Ramirez to the former empress of Mexico Carlota Amalia a few hours before her death (Brussels, January 19, 1927). The complexity of the text is central: theater within the theater. Carlota and Maximiliano perform for “Juarez” (Ramirez) and the spectators. The interaction of Erasmo and Carlota, on the other hand, represents and builds another “story” for the benefit of the historian himself and the viewers/readers of the future. There are also problems of identity revealed throughout the text. In symbolic terms, Ramirez, with his historian mask, represents a mestizo, modern and young Mexico in search of a recent past (re)created in Europe by an old European woman of royal ancestry. The opposition of these racial symbols, spaces and times juxtaposed shows a conflictive history in constant reinterpretation and transformation.

Community Engagement Pedagogy: A Tool to Empower Heritage Language and Second Language Integration

Community Engagement Pedagogy:A Tool to Empower Heritage Language and Second Language Integration Vanessa Marie Fernández and Lucía Osa-Melero Keywords community-engaged learning/aprendizaje en la comunidad, heritage learners/estudiantes de herencia, intercultural interaction/interacciones interculturales, L2 classroom/salón de clase de segunda lengua, mixed learners/estudiantes mixtos, peer interaction/interacciones entre compañeros Response 2 to "Meeting Student Needs: Integrating Spanish Heritage Language Learners into the Second Language Classroom" The article "Meeting Student Needs: Integrating Spanish Heritage Language Learners into the Second Language Classroom" confirms that, despite the challenges to the instructor, combining university heritage language (HL) and second language (L2) learners in the same classroom offers excellent pedagogical opportunities for both groups. In order to increase the outcomes, the article suggests that the instructor create a collaborative environment by employing a pedagogy based on group/pair activities, which allows L2 and HL students to learn from each other. However, the article cautions that HL learners "should not be relegated to tutoring roles or informants on culture or language," which decreases HL learning opportunities and intimates an uneven hierarchy between students. Thus, ideal learning conditions are contingent upon the organization and structure of group work (Postholm 2008). Fushino (2010) explains that student learning in a group environment is rather unpredictable unless structured guidance is in place. Therefore, Chiriac and Granström (2012) point to the importance of educational leadership and classroom management in designing group work activities. Moreover, Johnson and Johnson (1999) underscore that "placing socially unskilled students in a group and telling them to cooperate does not guarantee that they are able to do so effectively" (82). This rejoinder proposes that community engaged (CE) learning projects are an option that enables students to work cooperatively towards accomplishing a relevant goal. Community engagement encourages individual accountability and positive interdependence in a group setting. Moreover, CE projects also provide homogeneous L2 classrooms with some of the heterogeneity available in mixed classrooms. Heritage learner populations are increasing in most US universities, but this trend does not account for all institutions. Instructors in L2-dominant classrooms need to be resourceful if they want their students to obtain the benefits of the mixed classroom setting. CE learning projects that foster interaction between L2 learners and native speakers provide a viable option that promotes similar linguistic, cultural, and affective gains to those described in mixed classes. This pedagogy "places the student in an active role … promoting the use of the target language in a real-life context" (Caldwell 2007: 465). A project conducted in Pittsburgh by Osa-Melero and [End Page 53] Fernández forged a relationship between primarily upper-middle-class, Caucasian, university students and Mexican and Central American children, ages 5–8, who recently migrated to the city. This CE project enhanced L2 cultural sensitivity, linguistic proficiency, and literary knowledge while assisting newly arrived young Hispanic immigrants to integrate into their new community. Second language learners enrolled in upper-level Spanish language and literature courses worked cooperatively to develop a three-week program on Mexican history and culture for children enrolled in the Casa San José after-school program. They adapted authentic literary pieces in Spanish, such as Mexican Rodolfo Usigli's play Corona de sombra (1943), into dramatic scripts for the children to perform. Writing the scripts helped L2 learners develop their language skills with a purpose that transcended earning a grade. In addition, these culturally rich texts proved meaningful to the children and their families. Benefits for the children included: 1) exposure to L1 and their native culture in an academic setting and 2) personal growth through mentoring relationships with college students. Likewise, L2 learners reported gains in 1) oral, writing, and summarizing skills, and a nuanced appreciation of Hispanic culture; and 2) personal growth, as students reported working with Hispanic communities as one of their future career goals. Transforming group work practices through cooperative strategies following Johnson and Johnson's (1999) guidelines is a first step in eliminating hierarchies in the classroom and the community. Therefore, cooperative CE projects diminish the risk of uneven work dynamics and implicit hierarchies between students and the community. Vanessa Marie Fernández San José State University Lucía Osa...

In Honor of Sandra Messinger Cypess: Creator of Critical Dialogues

In Honor of Sandra Messinger Cypess: Creator of Critical Dialogues Priscilla Meléndez and Amalia Gladhart Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges, Rodolfo Usigli, Javier Villaurrutia, Celestino Gorostiza, Salvador Novo, Octavio Paz, Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos, Emilio Carballido, Griselda Gambaro, Carlos Fuentes, Myrna Casas, Cristina Pacheco, Sabina Berman, Nora Glickman: These are only some of the names of distinguished Spanish-American writers that surface when we examine the academic trajectory of Sandra Messinger Cypess—Sandy, to her friends and colleagues—professor emerita and former chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland. It is a trajectory that culminates most recently in the publication of Uncivil Wars: Elena Garro, Octavio Paz, and the Battle for Cultural Memory (2012), as well as the co-edited (with Valerie Orlando) Reimagining the Caribbean: Conversations amongst the Creole, English, French, and Spanish Caribbean (2014), a distinguished record to which Sandy has continued to add since her retirement from the University of Maryland. Sandy’s journey as a critic is broad in scope and in depth. The impressive repertory of writers just mentioned hail from all parts of the continent—Mexico, the Caribbean, and the Southern Cone; from diverse periods—colonial times, the 19th century, the avant-garde, and contemporary writers; and from all genres. Sandy has moved with ease from the study of Spanish-American poetry to theatre and narrative, contributing as well to Sephardic and Jewish studies and, in particular, producing a body of influential work on feminist and female writers. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and Master of Arts from Cornell University, Sandy earned her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Illinois, writing her dissertation, “The Dead Narrator in Modern Latin American Prose Fiction: A Study in Point of View,” under the direction of Don Luis Leal. During her distinguished teaching career, first at SUNY Binghamton and then at the University of Maryland (with visiting [End Page 9] and invited appointments along the way), she mentored hundreds of students, both graduate and undergraduate. As a scholar, she has mentored hundreds more through her many publications and through her generosity as reader, reviewer, editor, panel participant, and moderator. Sandy’s pioneering role in the study of women writers and feminism—an area of study that touches on the personal and the political—opened the way for many of us as we have traveled in her footsteps. Inspired by her work, we have felt, in our own research and writing, that we were conversing with Sandy, learning from her, even arguing with her about some aspects of the texts. She has the admirable gift of writing scholarly prose that is at once rigorous and accessible, welcoming and at the same time challenging the reader so as to develop that ongoing conversation that is the essence of scholarship. Sandy has played a leading role in the development of Latin American theatre studies in the US, expanding the canon even as it was established. A member of the editorial board of LATR since 1978, she produced some of the earliest studies of Griselda Gambaro, among many other playwrights. Her book La Malinche in Mexican Literature (1991) is indispensable for scholars as well as students. A clear example of the depth and breadth of her work, this landmark book traces the historical and mythical figure of La Malinche throughout Mexican literature, from Bernal Díaz’s account of Malintzin’s role in the conquest of the Aztec empire to Chicana writers’ reformulation of the Malinche myth. Reflecting the central place that theatre occupies in Sandy’s body of work, two of the book’s nine chapters focus on dramatic representations of La Malinche. The first, “La Malinche on Stage,” treats selected plays that deal with the Malinche figure, focusing on Rodolfo Usigli’s Corona de fuego (1960), Salvador Novo’s Cuauhtémoc (1962), Celestino Gorostiza’s La Malinche o La leña está verde (1958), and Carlos Fuentes’ Todos los gatos son pardos (1970). Reinterpretations of the figure are addressed in the next chapter, “Re/visions of the Cultural Metaphor,” through the analysis of El eterno femenino by Rosario Castellanos (1975...

Así pasan…efemérides teatrales 1900–2000 by Moncada Luis Mario

Reviewed by: Así pasan…efemérides teatrales 1900–2000 by Moncada Luis Mario Christina Baker Moncada, Luis Mario. Así pasan…efemérides teatrales 1900–2000. México, D.F.: Escenología, 2007: 575pp. Así pasan…efemérides teatrales 1900–2000, as the title implies, is an exhaustive work that details Mexico’s theatre history over the previous century. Organized in chronological order by decade, the book is more like a series of encyclopedic entries for every month of every year for the past 100 years. With titles like “En tiempos de Don Porfiriato,” “El sainete de la democracia,” or “Víctimas del pecado liberal,” it is clear that the author situates theatre within a broader understanding of national political events. In his entries, Moncada pays close attention to the way the changing political landscape has contributed to or hindered the development of institutions such as the University Center of Theatre (CUT), the Department of Theatre at the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), the School of Theatre Arts (Escuela de Arte Teatral), and the formation of the National Theatre Company, to name a few. [End Page 187] Moreover, the work makes mention of various instances when the political climate resulted in the censoring of what were deemed particularly critical or subversive works. For example, Rodolfo Usigli’s El gesticulador was published in 1938 but not performed until 1943 because of its critique of the Mexican Revolution (173). Similarly, Pilar Campesino’s piece Octubre terminó hace mucho tiempo (1971) had to be performed in the United States because of its critical examination of the still-recent 1968 student massacre (293). Aside from the political players, Moncada provides detailed information about the spaces, writers, directors, and actors that played fundamental roles in shaping the theatre of their time. Beginning with the Porfiriato, the work details the shift from the patronizing of Spanish zarzuelas or Italian operas to the supporting of a specifically Mexican theatre, which emerged during the Revolution and solidified throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Chronicling the construction and rivalries of famous theaters such as Teatro Principal, Teatro Lírico, Teatro Virginia Fábregas and Teatro Esperanza Iris, Moncada also provides a thorough list of actors of the era—such as Virginia Fábregas, Lupe Rivas Cacho, Mimi Derba, Roberto Soto, María Conesa, Jorge Negrete, Tin Tán, and Cantinflas—who undeniably cemented the growing star-system of theatre performers. While performers appeared to be more of a focal point for theatre during these early decades, in the mid-twentieth century directors and writers took center stage and gave birth to Mexico’s national theatre: Salvador Novo, Rodolfo Usigli, Celestino Gorostiza, Carlos Solórzano, Sergio Magaña, Emilio Carballido, Xavier Villaurrutia, and Xavier Rojas, to name a few. During the second half of the twentieth century, international theatre movements began to have an impact. With the 1930s and 1940s arrival of Japanese-born Seki Sano, Antonin Artaud, and Brechtian plays, Mexico was introduced to some of these movements. From the 1950s and beyond, with Sano’s translation of Constantin Stanislavski’s seminal work on actor training and the arrival of Alejandro Jodorowsky and his “happenings,” non-Mexican concepts regarding the limits and social purpose of theatre irrevocably influenced the kinds of plays produced in Mexico. Moncada’s thorough listing of produced works makes clear that Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett, and Bertolt Brecht were among the leading foreign playwrights represented on the Mexican stage. Moreover, as Mexico’s political corruption reached an all-time high in the 1980s, the theatre responded with an increasing interest in pushing its boundaries to cope with the reality of Mexican life. Dramaturgs and directors such as Vicente Leñero, Sabina Berman, Nancy Cárdenas, Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, and Jesusa Rodríguez began to create works that not only questioned Mexico’s socio-political situation, but also re-fashioned the limits of scene design by including non-traditional elements such as video projections and documentary theatre techniques. Así pasan…efemérides teatrales 1900–2000, despite its exhaustive study of Mexican theatre, is a difficult work to read. The format does not lend itself to a quick search for information unless...

Mexican “History” in and as Theatre in the Classroom and Beyond

Since Rodolfo Usigli’s El gesticulador (1938), the theaters of Mexico City and elsewhere have served as a staging ground for the re-thinking and re-presentation of past episodes of Mexican history. Over the years, I have developed a course titled “Contemporary Mexican Theatre: Staging the Past,” in which graduate students and advanced undergraduates read and discuss plays that revive certain historical entities and episodes as part of this creative re-opening and critical inquiry into the past. The objective of the class is threefold: to instill an appreciation for theatre as a means of revis(it)ing history; to convey the important role that history has played in the formation of contemporary Mexican consciousness; and to familiarize students with theoretical approaches that range from Hayden White’s concept of metahistory to Hans-Thies Lehmann’s “postdramatic” theatre. The overall objective of the class is to create an awareness of the complexity of Mexican history, of the power of the written word, and of the power of theatre in particular as a means of setting the story straight, giving voice to the vanquished as well as the vanished, demanding the truth and an end to impunity, and ultimately avoiding the repetition of past errors.

Ramón Layera y Katie Gibson. You Have Nothing to Learn From Me: A literary relationship between George Bernard Shaw & Rodolfo Usigli . Miami, Ohio: Miami University Libraries, 2011

Ramón Layera y Katie Gibson. <i>You Have Nothing to Learn From Me: A literary relationship between George Bernard Shaw &amp; Rodolfo Usigli</i> . Miami, Ohio: Miami University Libraries, 2011

Tragic Impostures: Greek tragedy and pre-Hispanic myth in the theatre of Rodolfo Usigli and Salvador Novo

Tragic Impostures: Greek tragedy and pre-Hispanic myth in the theatre of Rodolfo Usigli and Salvador Novo

You Have Nothing to Learn from Me: A Literary Relationship Between George Bernard Shaw and Rodolfo Usigli by Ramón Layera and Katie Gibson (review)

You Have Nothing to Learn from Me: A Literary Relationship Between George Bernard Shaw and Rodolfo Usigli by Ramón Layera and Katie Gibson (review)

Shaw's Mexican Disciple (You Have Nothing to Learn from Me: A Literary Relationship Between George Bernard Shaw and Rodolfo Usigli by Ramón Layera and Katie Gibson)

Shaw's Mexican Disciple (<i>You Have Nothing to Learn from Me: A Literary Relationship Between George Bernard Shaw and Rodolfo Usigli</i> by Ramón Layera and Katie Gibson)

INTERTEXTOS Y MEMORIA EN JUANA DE MANUELA INFANTE

The plays of Manuela Infante may be considered some of the most interesting works when we study the new Chilean drama of the last decade, both because of their introspective contents and because of the wide range of cultural allusions to be found in her plays. In her piece Juana (2004), we find significant references to the works of Vicente Huidobro, Rodolfo Usigli and Georges Bernard Shaw, thus establishing a relationship between the dramatic conceptions of this young Chilean playwright and the philosophical and esthetic tenets of those authors: there we may find a convergence of art, myth and memory. In this essay we will study the reworking of the character of Joan of Arc in the already mentioned play Juana, and we will explore the importance of these intertexts in order to show that the ‘works of historical memory' to be found in Infante and the Compania Teatro Club is founded on a solid Latin American and European tradition.

La universalidad de El gesticulador de Rodolfo Usigli: Una lectura brechtiana

In this article I consider Rodolfo Usigli's El gesticulador using Brechtian theatrical theory to explain the Mexican author's reference to clásico and the universality he attributes to his piece. El gesticulador can be understood as an example of man producing himself and his circumstances. As Brecht affirmed, "Man makes himself." I will show that, like the German playwright, Usigli utilizes impersonification to isolate a particular form of crisis of history. This impersonification - here, of the general César Rubio - created by a history professor and expert in the Mexican Revolution, shows the audience class struggle, its contradictions and the necessity of social change.

Rodolfo Usigli Centennial: An Interdisciplinary Commemoration

FALL2006 179 Rodolfo Usigli Centennial:An Interdisciplinary Commemoration Ramón Layera Miami University in Oxford, Ohio held a series of interdisciplinary activities as part of the Rodolfo Usigli centennial celebration in the fall of 2005. The events included a semester-long library exhibit, a staged reading of Usigli’s signature play El gesticulador and an international symposium on contemporary Mexican theatre. Miami University was the logical site for this commemoration as it is the privileged home of the Rodolfo UsigliArchive in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections Library; furthermore, Miami’s centennial celebration was developed in concert with the Centro Nacional de Investigación Teatral Rodolfo Usigli (CITRU), the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) and Universidad Iberoamericana, which also sponsored separate events and exhibits in Mexico. The activities held on the Miami campus were the following: Library exhibit Starting in September the Walter Havighurst Special Collections Library held “Rodolfo Usigli in Mexican Literature and theArts,” a semesterlong exhibit of materials from the Usigli Archive, the definitive research collection relating to Usigli’s life and career. Accompanying the exhibit a website provided details about the archive and the materials that were on display.TheexhibitincludedbiographicalinformationanddetailsaboutUsigli’s life and career as playwright, theatre historian and educator and diplomat. It also provided links to visual and documentary materials from the Archive, including manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, posters and stage designs of productions of his plays. Special Collections also prepared a descriptive catalog with information about and images of the library exhibit. The catalog was made available to the public throughout the fall semester. Copies of the 180 LATINAMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW catalog of the exhibit can be obtained by writing to Janet Stuckey at:stuckejh@muohio.edu.Anonline version of the catalog is available from the library website: http:// usigli.lib. muohio.edu/archive.php. Upon the request of the CITRU, Special Collections agreed to prepare facsimile copies of the materials that were displayed at Miami University in Ohio. The materials were shipped to Mexico for display at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) and at the CITRU in the Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART) complex. Professor Octavio Rivera of the Universidad de las AméricasPuebla (UDLA) served as curator for the exhibit that was held at the INBA. He spent a week in Oxford working with the staff at Special Collections and he helped identify and prepare the materials that were sent to Mexico. Judith Sessions, Dean of University Libraries and Janet Stuckey, Head of Special Collections, both of Miami University, traveled to Mexico City and participated as invited guests in the inauguration of the Usigli commemorative exhibit that was organized at the INBA. The exhibit was also displayed at the campus of the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM) and at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Professor José Luis Ibáñez, visiting resident director was the Featured Speaker at the general meeting of the Friends of the Miami University Libraries in November, 2005. The title of his lecture was: “Rodolfo Usigli: Playwright, Translator, Social Critic.” Staged reading of an Usigli play and guest director residency. The Department of Theatre and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Miami University hosted distinguished Mexican theatre director José Luis Ibáñez during a three-week residency. Prior to his arrival the Department of Theatre selected a cast, conducted preliminary rehearsals and made the necessary preparations for a public staged reading of Usigli’s Sabina Berman FALL2006 181 play The Impostor (English translation of El gesticulador) in Studio 88 at the Center for Performing Arts. Upon his arrival Señor Ibáñez assumed his role as director and he worked with the cast in preparation for the staged reading. Professor José Luis Ibáñez teaches acting, dramatic theory and composition at the School of Letters of the Universidad NacionalAutónoma de México (UNAM).With a distinguished career in professional and university theatre Ibáñez is recognized as one of Mexico’s most successful and accomplished contemporary directors. He is well-known for his work in musical comedies, but especially as director of classical and contemporary drama from Europe, Latin America and the United States...

Latin American Theatre Today 2005 in Connecticut

FALL2005 135 LatinAmerican Theatre Today 2005 in Connecticut TimothyG.Compton The sixth edition of Latin American Theatre Today was the first held away from the University of Kansas. The University of Connecticut hosted the event and provided its setting, Laurietz Seda organized it, gathered the resources and staff, and made sure that things ran smoothly. George Woodyard, who obviously relished his role as non-organizer, gave the Festival’s only keynote address the first evening, delivering the University of Connecticut “Luis Eyzaguirre Lecture” which he entitled “One Hundred Years of Plenitude: Key Moments in 20th Century Latin American theatre.” He identified and commented on what he considers to be ten key moments or forces in twentieth-century Latin American theatre, some of which were events (such as the 1968 Festival de Manizales), some were movements (such as the Teatro del Pueblo phenomenon in Buenos Aires) and others were people with huge impacts on theatre (such as Florencio Sánchez, Rodolfo Usigli, Seki Sano and Eugenio Barba). Mornings featured presentations of ponencias in concurrent sessions running five-deep, so some 100 scholars presented with representation from numerous countries. Many presentations dealt with the major theme of the conference, “Traducción, transgénero y transnacionalismo.” Early afternoons featured playwright roundtables with multiple playwrights each afternoon . These included Eduardo Rovner, Cristina Escofet, Nora Glickman, Héctor Levy-Daniel from Argentina; Frank and Reynaldo Disla from the Dominican Republic; Roberto Ramos-Perea,AravindAdyanthaya and Carlos Canales from Puerto Rico; Guillermo Schmidhuber,Antonio Zúñiga and Estela Leñero from Mexico; Migdalia Cruz, a Puerto Rican from New York; and Guillermo Gómez Peña, a Mexican now based in San Francisco. They spoke about their relationship with theatre and society, their work and fielded questions . Many of them personified the conference theme of transnationalism. 136 LATINAMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW Late afternoons featured workshops on translation or performance, “lecturas dramatizadas” of plays recently written by Estela Leñero, Carlos Canales and Nora Glickman, a live interview with Roberto Ramos-Perea, and screening of a film documentary. Two performances occurred nightly, with a bonus afternoon puppet show on April 6. The schedule of organized events ran from 8 AM to 10 PM, entirely on the University of Connecticut campus, which had beautiful facilities for all events. Plays at theatre festivals tend to be performed by small casts with minimal sets and technical requirements, and seek to break new ground in their content or technique. These traits largely describe the whole of the nine performances of this festival. Four of the plays were monologues. Four others had casts of two. The play with the largest cast had four actors. About half of the performances did not have a traditional story line and about the same number featured non-traditional visual imagery.Almost all lasted about an hour, with the longest lasting about 80 minutes. Four performances took place entirely in Spanish, one entirely in Portuguese, three almost entirely in English, and one had portions in English and others in Spanish. The highlight of the performances for me wasAravindAdyanthaya´s Prometeo encadenado, which he wrote, directed and performed himself. This was an “escritura dramatizada,” in which the set consisted almost entirely of a laptop computer on a desk with a chair and a large screen onto which was projected what Adyanthaya input to the computer. The major action of the play was just that, the inputting of data into a computer, which sounds rather dull, but in fact the audience seemed entertained and riveted to the monologue throughout. At first, when the only action was watching the performer type, the audience seemed to chuckle at even simple typographical errors. Perhaps the amusement stemmed from our surprise at seeing something so mundane as processing words transformed into theatre. Later the play become interactive with the audience, as Adyanthaya told the story of Prometheus, then interacted brilliantly with an audience volunteer, then went into the audience himself and finally led the audience in chants and word plays. Although some of this sounds silly, in fact this play examined several subjects in rather profound ways. One of the most striking was a profound look into the nature of symbols, and particularly letters...

The Leper in Blue: Coercive Performance and the Contemporary Latin American Theater by Amalia Gladhart (review)

1012 Reviews not to be found in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Salgado reveals the importance of Damaso Alonso's 1926 translation of A Portrait (El artista adolescente : Retrato (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva)), a translation he shows was very much informed by the poetic language of Gongora, the Spanish Baroque poet central to the 1927 Generation's revaloration of Baroque poetics. Thus, as Salgado perspicuously explains, the Baroque revival is 'intimately connected with the assimilation of a European aesthetic' (p. 81), i.e. Modernism, and Alonso's text becomes a nexus linking Joyce's European Modernism and Lezama's Caribbean neobaroque. Incidentally, this section of the book seems to me to suggest the need for a full-length study of the language of Alonso's translation of Joyce's work, exploring its correspondences with Baroque rhetoric. Salgado's concluding analysis of the uncanny similarities between the polemic occasioned by attempts to produce 'corrected' versions of Ulysses and Paradiso and the perceived need to produce such versions is an absorbing and appropriate ending which furtherillustrates the close relationship of Joyce's and Lezama's work through displaced symptoms of the Freudian kind. My only criticisms ofthe book are minor ones, and concern the publisher ratherthan the author. The index is but an index of names, while the last chapter is, ironically, slightly marred by a greater number of typographic and orthographic errors than in previous ones (although these are to be found throughout the book, especially in Spanish quotations or in the inconsistent rendering of original German terms such as Bildungsroman or Walpurgisnacht). However, the errors are not so frequent that the reader of Salgado's book, like some readers of Joyce's and Lezama's novels discussed in this last chapter, would be tempted to establish 'a link between textual errancy and the author's moral corruption' (p. 194). Far from this, Salgado's book is a lucid account which displays considerable virtues in its detailed documentation and handling of complex texts, ideas, and issues. University of Stirling Alexis Grohmann The Leper in Blue: Coercive Performance and the Contemporary Latin American Theater . By Amalia Gladhart. (North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Department of Modern Languages. 2000. 245 pp. $34-95The book sets out to be a study of contemporary Latin American theatre, focusing on the interaction of the plays and their audiences. The strongest point ofthe volume is the introduction, which presents an in-depth analysis of the theory of performance, supported by an impressive overview of the existing body of research on the subject. Such an approach appeals both to specialists in Latin American theatre studies and to researchers in other fields of Latin American culture, as it offers an analysis of a wide range of plays with a solid theoretical back-up, which is intended to inform the underlying argument of the whole work. The book often favours less researched works, stepping away from popular names in Latin American theatre, such as Rodolfo Usigli and Carlos Fuentes. This has advantages and disadvantages. While the choice of works gives the less researched playwrights the attention they deserve, in several chapters the absence of the connection with the body of mainstream writing creates the impression that this has had little or no effect on the later pieces. Moreover, Gladhart's decision is not put consistently into effectthroughout the volume. In the firstcomparative analysis of historical plays she is faithfulto the strategy, studying the works of Vicente Lenero, Jose Antonio Rial, Sabina Berman, and Miguel Sabido. However, the focal point of MLR, 97.4, 2002 1013 the chapter, which is the multiple interpretations of a historical event, immediately evokes Usigli's renowned El gesticulador, which remains unexplored. A deeper, more complex meaning ofthe multiplicity of 'truth' is thereforeabandoned in favour ofsupporting , often superficially, the idea of 'coercive performance'. A short and succinct overview of the tradition of Latin American historical plays and semi-documentary testimonioswould have offered a wider intertextual background, against which the study of less well-known plays would have appeared contextually logical. Instead, the existing seven-line nod to the mainstream historical plays gives...

Cinema and Theatre in Rodolfo Usigli's Los viejos

Cinema and Theatre in Rodolfo Usigli's <i>Los viejos</i>

Peter Beardsell, "A Theatre for Cannibals. Rodolfo Usigli and the Mexican Stage" (Book Review)

Peter Beardsell, "A Theatre for Cannibals. Rodolfo Usigli and the Mexican Stage" (Book Review)

A Theatre for Cannibals, Rodolfo Usigli and the Mexican Stage

A Theatre for Cannibals, Rodolfo Usigli and the Mexican Stage

Peter Beardsell.A Theatre for Cannibals. Rodolfo Usigli and the Mexican Stage.

Peter Beardsell.<b><i>A Theatre for Cannibals. Rodolfo Usigli and the Mexican Stage</i>.</b>