Theatre of Crisis: Politics, Violence, and Memory in Spanish America

This course offers an examination of the pervasive topic of violence and its relation to politics in contemporary Spanish American theatre from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. We will center our discussions on three controversial and debated issues: 1) The role of politics within the discourse of theatre, 2) the implications and repercussions of staging the violence experienced by the members of society, 3) and the victims’ attempts to face their violent past by preserving memory. In this way Spanish American theatre bears witness and documents the struggle for human rights in the region and the need to never forget. (1 unit)
Readings
La maestra (Colombia) – Enrique Buenaventura
La noche de los asesinos (Cuba 1965) – José Triana (Cuba)
El campo (Argentina 1965) – Griselda Gambaro
La pasión según Antígona Pérez (Puerto Rico 1968) – Luis Rafael Sánchez
El señor Galíndez (Argentina 1973) – Eduardo Pavlovsky
El juego (Venezuela 1976) – Mariela Romero
Pedro y el Capitán (Uruguay 1979) – Mario Benedetti
El viaje de los cantores (México 1988) – Hugo Salcedo (ver web)
La muerte y la doncella (Chile 1990)– Ariel Dorfman
Cuarteto (Argentina 1991) – Eduardo Rovner
Contracciones- Marta Betoldi
Required texts: Eds. Frank Dauster, Leon Lyday, & George Woodyard, 9 dramaturgos hispanoamericanos: Antología de teatro hispanoamericano del siglo XX: Tomo I (La noche de los asesinos) (Ottawa: Girol Books 2nd ed., 1983 or most recent
ISBN 0-919659-37-3; Luis Rafael Sánchez, La pasión según Antígona Pérez
16th ed., 2000 or most recent, (Río Piedras, PR: Editorial Cultural) ISBN 84-399-3092-5;
Mario Benedetti, Pedro y el Capitán (Publisher: Punto de Lectura) 2006 (or most recent)
ISBN-10: 9707311320 ISBN-13: 978-9707311329; Ariel Dorfman, La muerte y la doncella (Nueva York: Siete Cuentos), 2001, ISBN-10: 158322078X ISBN-13: 978-1583220788