Theatre of Latin America

Catalog description

An introduction to the history, theories, and practices of Latin American drama, focusing on the 20th century. We pay special attention to the historical reinvention of European-based theatrical forms in the Americas through their continuous interaction with non-European cultural forms. Through the plays of leading dramatists?including Jorge D?az, Egon Wolff, Sergio Vodanovic (Chile), Jos? Triana (Cuba), Ren? Marquez and Luis Rafael S?nchez (Puerto Rico), Isaac Chocr?n (Venezuela), Emilio Carballido, Luisa Josefina Hern?ndez, Sabina Berman, Elena Garro (Mexico), Osvaldo Drag?n, Eduardo Pavlovsky, Roberto Cossa, and Griselda Gambaro (Argentina)?we explore the significance of modernist and postmodernist dramatic forms in cultures where industrial modernity is an insecure social context. We study the wealth of oppositional theatre in Latin America?exemplified by Augusto Boal?s ?theatre of the oppressed??in relation to the historical use (or abuse) of theatrical spectacle as a political means to control peoples, from the early Spanish conquerors to recent authoritarian state leaders. We read postcolonial Latin American theories of culture and art, such as hybridity, transculturation, Brazil?s modernist and anticolonial antropofag?a, and the ?aesthetics of hunger,? drawing on the work of Fernando Ortiz, Angel Rama, and N?stor Garc?a Canclini, among others. We consider ?magical realism? in the theatre as a social poetics of scarcity.