Politics and Violence in Spanish American Theatre



This course will concentrate on the Spanish American theatre of the second half of the 20th-century, focusing on two of its most controversial and debatable aspects: the role of politics in theatrical discourse and the repercussions of the theatrical representation of violence against people in their societies. We will examine how violence is often represented in this theater as a grotesque game in which spectators are invited to participate either as victimizers or as victims. (1 unit)



Required texts: 9 dramaturgos hispanoamericanos: Antología de teatro hispanoamericano del siglo XX: Tomo I (La noche de los asesinos), eds. Frank Dauster, Leon Lyday, & George Woodyard (Ottawa: Girol Books, 2nd ed., 1983 or most recent ISBN 0-919659-37-3); Luis Rafael Sánchez, La pasión según Antígona Pérez 16th ed. (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editiorial Cultural, 2000 (or most recent) ISBN 84-399-3092-5); Sabina Berman, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda. Muerte súbita. El suplicio del placer (Mexico: Grupo Editorial Gaceta 1st, 1994 or most recent ISBN 968-7155-59-0; Osvaldo Pavlovsky, El señor Galíndez. Pablo (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Búsqueda, 1986 or most recent ISBN 950-560-031-3); Eduardo Rovner, Teatro 1. Cuarteto (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor,1994 or most recent ISBN 950-515-419-4); Ariel Dorfman, La muerte y la doncella (Nueva York: Siete Cuentos, 2001ISBN-10: 158322078X, ISBN-13: 978-1583220788; other critical readings will be provided in electronic form at Middlebury.