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Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND 8022265 El l io t t, N o r m a Je a n SPANISH AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEATRE: 1959-1970 The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1980 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 18 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4EJ, England Copyright 1980 by Elliott, Norma Jean All Rights Reserved SPANISH AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEATRE: 1959-1970 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Norma Jean Elliott, B.A., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1980 Reading Committee: Approved By J Grinor Rojo / Reinaldo Jimenez l/l < Advise Stephen Summerhill Deparftmentr-ef Romance Languages ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation adviser, Professor Grinor Rojo, for his unstinting and generous support, guidance, advice, and friendship throughout the planning and writing of this dissertation; my husband, John, for his suggestions, moral support and sacrifice during a difficult period for us both; my graduate adviser. Professor Marta Morello-Frosch, for her encourage ment and inspiration during my coursework and the germina tion phase of this study; and my typist, Mrs. Eleanor Sapp, for her efficiency, alert eye, and professionalism. VITA March 9, 1944 ......... Born - Wolverhampton, England 1966 ................. B.A., Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia 1967 ................. M.A., The University of Wiscon sin, Madison, Wisconsin 1967-1968 ............. Visiting Instructor, Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia 1970-19 74 ............. Teaching Associate, Department of Romance Languages, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 19 77-19 79 ............. Visiting Instructor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "Resena: Jos£ Triana: La ritualizaciOn de la sociedad cubana." Hispoam^rica, Fall 1979. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................... ii VITA .................................................... iii PROLOGUE ............................................. 1 INTRODUCTION ......................................... 15 Chapter I. M E X I C O .......................................... 77 II. C U B A ............................................ 14 5 III. C H I L E .......................................... 199 IV. ARGENTINA ..................................... 252 CONCLUSIONS........................................... 321 NOTES .................................................. 334 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 35 8 iv PROLOGUE This thesis investigates the state of contemporary Spanish American theatre during the 1960s from the vantage point of its political direction, a direction which clearly manifested itself in that decade and which came to be a major trend in the 1970s. The effect of the dramatists' political commitment on drama as a literary form, an analysis of how the dramatic form has been conceived and reformulated, if it has been, within the contemporary social and political context, and drama's use for political ends comprise the main body of this study. The study is both descriptive and analytic from the point of view of content and form and recognizes an interrelationship between content and aesthetic expression and the society in which the dramatic work is created. The political scenario of the 1960s is presented in order to locate objectively the political drama discussed. Three basic criteria have been taken into consideration for the selection of the four major dramatic works investi gated within the main body of the dissertation. First, these works exemplify the critical political directions expressed in general throughout those dramatic works of the period studied. They are nationally representative of the political theatre in their respective countries: Argentina, Chile, Cuba and Mexico, each nation expressing different political climates: the communist social revolutionary government of Cuba, the Christian Democratic experiment of Frei in Chile, the limited democracy of texico, and the military dictatorship of Argentina. And, finally, the works assimilate various literary trends which Spanish American dramatists have contoured to their needs in political and social evaluations. The difficulties in obtaining primary and secondary materials on political theatre have narrowed to some degree the selective base from which the body of the work has been chosen. Enough material has been available, however, re garding the theatre of the selected countries to present a fairly comprehensive view of their political theatre. The four plays selected for in-depth consideration are Emilio Carballido's jSilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maizi (Mexico, 1963), Ant6n Arrufat's Los siete contra Tebas (Cuba, 1968), Isidora Aguirre's Los que van quedando en el camino (Chile, 1969), and the collective work of Roberto Cossa, GermSn Rozenmacher, Carlos Somigliani, and Ricardo Talesnik, El avidn negro (Argentina, 1970). Drama is, of course, social and immediate in its expres sion, being intimately connected with a public. Due to its dynamic nature and the inherent character of multiple communication it implies, theatre can convey, more than the lyric and the epic, an instant impact of opinion and crit icism on a mass level and can lend itself in a powerful didactic direction to promote contemporary change. Such potential has long been recognized from Horace and Plato to Piscator and Brecht. While Eric Bentley has criticized the Brechtian belief in this political importance of theatre, questioning its effect on politics as an institution and citing art's essentially internal and individual impact, he does, nonetheless, recognize the ability of drama to "some how both focus and enlarge discontent."^ And he notes the value of propaganda in confirming convictions and enabling renewed struggle, emphasizing value in the theatre of com mitment for that audience in the middle, who may be vaguely sympathetic to the cause but are a little sluggish and sleepy about it. They may assent but they are not really committed, and the purpose of the Drama of Commitment is not to be for Commitment but to get people to commit themselves.2 The 1960s witnessed an increasing number of Spanish American playwrights turning their craft and art in this direction of self-commitment to the end of audience commitment. Critics of contemporary Spanish American theatre, such as George W. Woodyard and Frank Dauster, have noted the danger of politically ideological or agitational theatre to sacrifice literary and dramatic quality and long-lasting 3 impact for the purposes of message or agitational end. Of 4 course, such judgments are formulated dependent upon the individual critic's concepts of the nature and function of the drama. Where contemporary drama trends focus on col lectively conceived, written and presented theatre, or plays adaptable to the physical and social limitations con fronted by itinerant theatre groups, and on theatre involv ing audience participation, for example— as is often the case with radical and experimental Spanish American theatre— the applicability of traditional dramatic stand ards becomes highly problematic. The problem is serious and can only be resolved through a reformulation of theo retical criteria in such cases, a reformulation which, for obvious reasons, is not the realm of this thesis to resolve. However, as