El teatro popular contemporaneo en America Latina, 1955-1985

Chesney Lawrence, Luis Sergio (1987) El teatro popular contemporaneo en America Latina, 1955-1985. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

The aims of this thesis are (a) to present an account of the development of Latin American popular theatre during these three decades, a process that has not so far been adequately explained and analyzed by critics; (b) to propose a new approach for the study of popular drama, through an examination of the cultural system of the continent and the major tendencies in the popular theatre that have occurred within it during those decades; (c) to examine a series of eight plays produced by various authors, movements and dramatic techniques in different countries and at different periods, all of which are considered as representative examples of the Latin American popular theatre, and finally (d) to show how all those plays are linked together by certain common characteristics so that they may been seen as examples of a broad Latin American movement in popular drama, which enables us to speak in terms of a continental form of expression. The opening chapter traces the antecedents of popular theatre in Latin America, and follows its historical development, especially during the present century. The second chapter examines the main trends in the concept of this theatre in Latin America, and concludes with a proposal for a new approach to popular drama. Chapter three studies the origins of The Experimental Theatre of Cali (Colombia) and one of their plays Soldados (1970), the starting point of the innovative techniques of `collective creation'. Chapter four centres on the Escambray Theatre Group (Cuba), which offers an example of popular drama evolving in a socialist society, and whose play La Vitrina (1971), is considered as marking the beginning of popular drama within the revolutionary experience of that country. Chapter five illustrates the concept of popular theatre as an expression of political commitment by looking at two major dramatists, Cesar Rengifo (Venezuela) and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri (Brazil), and their plays El Vendaval Amarillo (1954) and Eles Nã Usam Black-Tie (1958), two works of powerful political content. Chapter six explores the relationship between popular drama and two of the most important sociopolitical problems of Latin America - political exile and resistance against repression. Two authors, Manuel Galich (Guatemala) and Jaime Miranda (Chile), and their works El Tren Amarillo (1954) and Por la Razon o la Fuerza (1981), are studied. Also included in this final chapter is an analysis of a movement, the Teatro Abierto of Argentina, which is considered as the most important theatrical development of that country, produced under the difficult conditions of military dictatorship at the beginning of the 1980s. The conclusions emphasise the following points: the particular features of this unknown theatre, the contributions it has made in revitalizing drama throughout the continent, and the contrast between the popular theatre and the traditional theatre. They also clarify in what senses this development in drama can legitimately be termed `popular'. (D80183)

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