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University Micrdnlms International 300 N. ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR. 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 far as it has been possible and guided by my own intuition in such cases, I have sought to avoid selec­

tion of plays for investigation whose dramatic legitimacy, whether valid or not, rests solely on their message while sacrificing basic standards of theatrical and literary quality.

Michael Kirby, editor of The Drama Review, defines political theatre as a "performance that . . . can be inten­ tionally concerned with government, that is intentionally 4 engaged or consciously takes sides in politics." "Politi­ cal theatre is explicit in pointing out the institutions and aspects of government that should change; it often describes and supports the exact nature of these changes."^ Kirby also notes the confusion among critics in the appli­ cation of the terms "political," "social," and "economic" to certain drama. However, a definition of political theatre narrowed to the explicitly political would relegate politi­ cal theatre to purely realistic dramatic presentations.

Thus it would exclude the epic political theatre formulated by Bertolt Brecht and likewise ignore the theatre of the absurd and the grotesque and expressionistic theatres for their possible use in political criticism. In addition, if only that theatre which had a major political focus were to be included within the definition then much of the drama produced in repressive regimes under severe censorship also would be dismissed from the political category. It appears necessary, therefore, to expand Kirby's definition from the point of view of dramatic expression to take into account politically directed anti-realistic and also economically and socially focused theatre which deflects direct or explicit political comment for censorship reasons but yet has a clearly political thrust or implication.

Such an expanded definition of political theatre clearly would be applicable within the Spanish American context, for there government censorship frequently limits the possibilities of "political" dramatic expressions which are "explicit" and "exact" in their criticisms

(Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, and Chile, for example). Thus, there are numerous Spanish American contemporary works which make their political criticisms tangentially. These criticisms have been cloaked in various dramatic forms.

For example, Heroica de Buenos Aires (1966) by Osvaldo

Dragtin with Brechtian epic techniques presents the plight of the economically depressed through a protagonist caught in the absurd cross-fire of military maneuvers which satirically convey the sense of chaos both within the formal state and within society; the work's major thrust is per­ sonal anguish in the struggle for economic survival but the background is clearly political and the protagonist sym­ bolically representational of a class politically isolated from the nation's resources. Egon Wolff's Flores de papel

(1970) and Ren£ Marques' El apartamiento (1964) depend on surreal expression of individual imprisonment and imply the existence of an external, politically rigid control threatening its power in the background. Historical dis­ tancing of setting and characters have provided other

Spanish American dramatists an avenue for contemporary political criticism, virgilio Pifiera's Electra Garrig6

(1941), Carlos Somigliani's Amarillo (1965) and Ant6n

Arrufat's Los siete contra Tebas (196 8) provide such examples.

Because of the leftist social and political character of much of the Latin American intellectual community, it is not surprising that Marxist concepts of society, economy and art are prevalent among a number of contemporary Latin 7

American dramatists and hence have been evidenced in their works. Marxism views literature as "centrally conditioned by historical, social and economic forces," with the result that "ideological content and [the] articulate world-view of a writer are crucially engaged in the act of literary judgment."*’ In such a context it is not possible to avoid consideration of the political intent of the works by self­ stated Marxists. To them there is an intimate connection between governments and the socioeconomic systems which are represented by them. Examples of socioeconomic criticism used with political intent or overtone are Isidora Aguirre's

Los que van quedando en el camino and Los papeleros and

Egon Wolff's Los invasores. Aguirre is a self-proclaimed

Marxist.

Therefore, "political theatre" for the purpose of this thesis is applied to those works not necessarily

"exact" or "explicit" in their criticism of given govern­ ments or political institutions or in their dramatic pre­ sentations of these criticisms. That theatre which is politically critical in an indirect or implicit manner and whose major critical focus is political, social or economic has to be considered within the Spanish American context as political theatre. This seemingly vague and broad defini­ tion has arisen precisely because of the Marxist or leftist ideology stated as germane to the creation, content and 8

form of particular works by the authors who appear in the

decade under consideration.

The method of investigation is historical and descrip­

tive along the lines applied to drama by Frank Dauster in

his second edition of Historia del teatro hispanoamericano.

The political and social background to that drama is pre­

sented integrally with it according to the model found in

Grinor Rojo's presentation of Chilean contemporary theatre 7 in Europe, October, 19 76.

With regard to the five selected plays, analytical procedures utilized begin with an investigation of the works themselves, structural in approach, which attempts to work from the internal "signifiers" to the external "signi­

fied" in order to illuminate the connection between the dramatic form and its political content and the political message the dramatists seek to convey. To a large extent this method follows the critical and analytical procedures developed by Juan Villegas in La interpretacidn de la obra dramStica. They, in turn, largely derive from Wolfgang

Kayser's Interpretaci6n y anSlisis de la obra literaria and

Felix Martlnez-Bonati's La estructura de la obra literaria, whose methodology Villegas has adapted to the dramatic 9 genre. Villegas seeks to penetrate the works as "un medio de comunicacidn, un producto de vigencia intrinseca, y una obra dromStica."^ His emphasis on the "obra dramStica" considers the functions of its constituent parts following Roland Barthes* definition of the structuralist's aim to reconstruct an "object" such that the functional laws governing that object are manifest in the reconstruction.^

The structurally based analysis of the dramatic works is related to a description of the political and social environment in which they were conceived, and the inter­ penetration between the works and that environment is developed. This critical approach seeks to avoid as much as possible subjective imposition of any given political interpretation onto the works without justification arising from within the works themselves. It attempts to relate structure and technique in a given work to its historical moment, recognizing the critical problems of bridging the gap between the imaginative literary creation and the exterior environment from which it emerges. This analysis accepts Lucien Goldmann's hypothesis that "toda gran obra literaria y pofetica es un producto social y no puede ser comprendida en su unidad sino a partir de la realidad 12 histdrica. ..." Harry Levin has stated that "litera­ ture does not reflect but rather refracts life . . . the 13 critic must determine the angle of the refraction." My methodology hopes to clarify the political refraction through the dramatic angle.

Spanish American theatre has traditionally been of minor concern to literary critics and students. Among the reasons most frequently cited are the lack of a solid 10

Spanish American theatre tradition— with the exceptions of

Argentina and Mexico, the enormous difficulty of acquiring

copies of dramatic works, many of which have not been

staged let alone published, and the general feeling that much of the theatre produced has been of questionable quality. However, the last twenty years have witnessed a marked increase in published works and subsequent critical

interest in the field, a fact born out in the Leon F.

Lyday and George W. Woodyard bibliography covering the

1960s, which appeared in the Fall 1969 issue of Theatre

Documentation. This bibliography contains approximately

700 critical references with no primary works included. But quantity is no measure of quality, of course, and where little tradition and experience with drama exist in the

Spanish American context, it comes as little surprise that in-depth studies are often at a premium.

However, the past decade or so has produced some fine general studies pointing out the directions and scope of the contemporary theatre. Probably the most helpful of these are Agustin del Saz' Teatro hispanoamericano (1963), a strictly chronological presentation of theatre data, plays and playwrights; Carlos Sol6rzano's El teatro latino- americano en el siglo XX (1964); GrinorRojo's Los origenes del teatro hispanoamericano (1972); and Frank Dauster's second edition of Historia del teatro hispanoamericano

(1973). The latter three works transcend the purely historical approach of del Saz and are particularly helpful

in making analyses and syntheses of periods, trends, gener­

ations, literary and aesthetic movements, and in pointing

out major European intellectual and scientific influences

within Spanish American theatre. Gerardo Luzuriaga's col­

lection of articles by prominent scholars, Popular Theater

for Change in Latin America (1978), is particularly helpful

for its coverage of the organizational aspects of theatre

through university and independent theatre groups and

national and international festivals. Some excellent in-

depth studies of major plays and playwrights can be found

in Frank Dauster's Ensayos sobre el teatro hispanoameri­

cano; the recent Dramatists in Revolt: The New Latin Ameri­

can Theatre (1976) edited by Leon F. Lyday and George W.

Woodyard, which, along with the Latin American Theatre

Review, also treats Brazilian theatre; and RomSn V. de la

Campa's Jos§ Triana: La ritualizacidn de la sociedad

cubana (19 79). Raul Castagnino has developed a semiotic

study of eight plays from the period between 1955 and 1962

in Semidtica, ideologla y teatro hispanoamericana (1974),

and while its presentation of the semiotic method is infor­ mative and extensive, its application to the selected plays

is disappointingly uneven. Pedro Bravo-Elizondo's El

teatro hispanoamericano de critica social (1975) provides

an excellent and intensive description of the literary and

dramatic movements evident in contemporary drama from 12

Jarry to Brecht and includes several fine studies of

specific plays along with others of uneven depth.

Beyond the indirect treatments found in studies by

Castagnino and Bravo-Elizondo there are virtually no major works, including theses, which deal with Spanish American

theatre in its political vein. Bravo-Elizondo's effort cited above discusses two major trends in contemporary drama; conflict between the collectivity and the dominant sociopolitical system, and conflict between the individual and his environment. However, his analysis of the first trend is for the most part lacking in empirical support regarding the contemporary Spanish American social and political environment and confines itself to a descriptive thematic treatment in most cases. Castagnino's afore­ mentioned work recognizes the Marxist ideology underlying the thematic direction of the 1920-1930 generation whose work he studies. But, as in Bravo-Elizondo's work, there is no effort to relate this ideology to the actual socio­ political environment of the countries involved. Despite his brief explanatory chapter on art and the Marxist ideology, Castagnino stops short of the mark he clearly sees and does not bring into clear relation this ideology and its dramatic expression.

George W. Woodyard's article "Toward a Radical Theatre in Spanish America" in Harvey L. Johnson and Philip B.

Taylor's Contemporary Latin American Literature (1973) is 13 the only study on political theatre which treats the latter as a definite trend in contemporary theatre and discusses the movement in some detail. However, again the statement of such and such a work being political is made without any follow-up discussion of how and why within the sociopoliti­ cal context from which it is produced. The article is important in being one of the few to draw a connection between censorship and radical dramatic techniques for circumventing censorship.

Other studies on politics and theatre in Spanish

America are usually brief articles widely scattered throughout the literary journals. Politics and theatre are a prime concern of only one journal, Conjunto, pub­ lished in Cuba by Casa de las Americas. Conjunto publishes political theatre and critical articles and provides a forum for playwrights to discuss their theatre. Since the late 1960s, Conjunto has focused primarily on leftist political drama. Articles of political interest regarding

Spanish American theatre appear occasionally in the Spanish

Primer Acto.

In the United States only one journal specifically deals with Spanish American and Brazilian theatre, the

Latin American Theatre Review of the University of Kansas, where articles dealing with the topic occasionally appear.

Brazil and Argentina appear to stand in the forefront in producing political theatre in Latin America. 14

Interestingly, both are military governments. Unfortunate­

ly, their theatre journals in which articles on political theatre have appeared are not easily come by. On the whole, the subject of political theatre in Spanish America begs organized, critical investigation, to which this disserta­ tion hopes to contribute. INTRODUCTION

Latin American governments of the 1960s confronted difficult decisions regarding socioeconomic development.

They initially continued the industrialization and redis­ tribution of national wealth which had been begun without sustained success by two previous decades of populist regimes. However, the basic structural changes which these policies implied eventually led them to political crisis.

The general nature and scope of the political, social, and economic conflicts brought to a head in the 1960s shed light on the political direction of that decade's theatre, which reflected the turmoil from which it emerged with considerable sensitivity and accuracy. The following gen­ eral description of the political climate of Latin America in the 1950s and 196 0s will focus on the problems of economic and political development. It will then be related to the political theatre of the 1960s discussed in the main body of this work.

It is useful for developing an overall political view of Latin American nations to discuss briefly the basic limitations which have impeded development. Natural restrictions include geographic size and dependency on limited primary resources, especially for the Central 15 16

American and Caribbean countries, whereby dependency on a

single crop or mineral exports to finance domestic growth

leaves many countries victims of world price fluctuations.

Additionally, annual population growths near 3 percent severely diminish per capita incomes despite sporadically encouraging GNP achievements. Social limitations primarily develop from the dualistic character of Latin American society with its tremendous gap between elites and the masses, whether the elites are comprised of traditional rural patrician classes or of a combination of the latter and the commercial and industrial upper bourgeois sectors.

The thesis that growing national bourgeois sectors would oppose and diminish the power of traditional latifundistas has proven false. Rather, as Rodolfo

Stavenhagen has pointed out, these two sectors have formed a symbiotic relationship based on shared interests, with the middle sectors economically, politically and socially dependent upon the upper classes and tendinq to be conser­ vative defenders of the status quo."'" Alliance between the rural sector and the urban proletariat has also proved an untenable expectation since rural investment and reform imply hiqher food prices and initial food shortaqes for the urban sector; the latter is expectedly reticent to see its hiqher waqes frozen or checked and its social services curtailed to provide investment capital for rural develop- 2 ment. Growth of the urban and industrial proletariat has 17 occurred at the expense of the rural sectors which comprise approximately 50 percent of the potentially productive

labor force and receive about 20 percent of total national income despite attempts to reorient the economy and redis- 3 tribute its wealth. Of the total Latin American popula­ tion in I960, 20 percent received only 3 percent of all income, whereas 20 percent of the richest received 50 per- 4 cent. Concentration of wealth also occurs in urban cen­ ters, giving rise to internal regional colonialism. As

Helio Jaguaribe has noted, marginality in Latin America can be economic, social, cultural and political with regard to participation in a qiven society, territorial with regard to internal privileged regions, or intraregional and inter- 5 hemispheric with regard to international relations.

In addition to obstacles of primary resource depend­ ency, high population growths, and an essentially polarized dualistic society, Latin American countries in the 1960s faced further problems of uneven rural agrarian and urban industrial development aggravated by massive population migration to the cities, insufficient industrialization, limited markets, technological and managerial needs and shortages, excessive concentration of rural lands, income distribution, need for development lead time, need for stable economic climates and internal political order to attract investment capital (whether domestic and/or foreign), and the desirability, capability and degree of 18 attraction or rejection of foreign multinational corpora­ tions, foreign investment and aid.

Responses to these complex and interdependent problems involved decisions regarding the possible political routes to be taken. Two basic directions were posited by histor­ ical precedent: reform, begun sporadically and unevenly by populist regimes since the 1930s, and revolution, either of the capitalist-socialist Mexican prototype or of the

Cuban Marxist socialist model. Reform implied working with­ in already existing capitalist structures, either changing participatory subsystem structures (Chilean and Venezuelan responses, for example) or merely the modes of operation of those subsystems (Argentinian and Brazilian responses); revolution implied essential change of the main partici­ patory structure.^ Helio Jaguaribe has described three possible economic avenues open to Latin American coun­ tries: dependence, often "in the name of a united front against international communism"; autonomy; and revolu- 7 tion. He categorized as dependency oriented: Argentina,

Brazil and Mexico, as well as the majority of the Central

American and Caribbean states which he considers basically nonviable economically and politically due to North

American interests and to dependency on single crops.

Nations opting for autonomy followed either radical reform

(chosen by Peru and Bolivia) or progressive reform (chosen by Venezuala, Chile and Uruguay). Cuba, of course, 19

followed the alternative of Marxist-Leninist revolution.

Gary W. Wynia has described three possible political

routes in the 1960s in response to the above-mentioned problems: military authoritarianism, democratic reformism,

and revolution. Both Jaguaribe's economic routes and

Wynia's political routes are helpful in describing and analyzing alternatives variously employed by Latin American governments in the 1960s. There appears at first glance a simplistic parallel of both approaches with dependence and military authoritarianism (characterizing Argentina and

Brazil), autonomy and democratic reformism (applying to

Chile and Venezuela), and revolution (Cuba) in both sys­ tems. However, this parallelism breaks down in a number of instances, and the usefulness of applying both categori­ zations becomes apparent when one finds military authori­ tarian regimes following an autonomous economic route, such as Peru, or a regime classified as revolutionary by Wynia but as dependent in Jaguaribe's system, Mexico, for example.

While a number of hybrid political-economic systems characterized the 1960s, it was, nonetheless, clearly the reform trend which predominated, whether under a military or a democratic political structure. In order to under­ stand the direction taken by different Latin American countries, it is necessary first to appreciate the impor­ tance of populism and external influences which shaped the political developments of the 1960s. Spurred by initial industrial growth resulting from post-Depression and World War II influenced import cutbacks and by the United Nation's Economic Commission for Latin

America (ECLA) recommendations for development of heavy industry through regional economic integration and import substitution, Latin American populist governments since the

1930s and 1940s directed their attention to the burgeoning urban masses. Charismatic and demagogic leaders out for rapid short-term results initiated development programs which were loosely and sporadically promoted without any cohesive philosophical and implementational framework. Such programs often suggested a radical reform intent to re­ structure and redistribute the political and economic power bases of traditional elites, an intent which was not sig- 0 nificantly realized in actuality. Traditionally, Latin

American nations had been suppliers of primary goods and importers of consumer and industrial goods during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Under the popu­ list regimes which began to emerge in the 1930s, they turned their capital and labor resources toward durable consumer goods production. Examples of such tendencies include the populist regimes of Getulio Vargas (1934-4 5,

1950-54) and Juscelino Kubitschek (1955-60) in Brazil; Juan

Perdn (1946-55) and Arturo Frondizi (1958-62) in Argentina;

LSzaro C&rdenas (1934-40) and Ldpez Mateos (1958-64) in

Mexico; Rdmulo Betancourt in Venezuela (1945-47); and 21

Rojas Pinilla in Columbia (1950-57). Their political bases stemmed from two sources: the large urban masses, to whom they appealed for continued support through union organiza­ tion, increased minimum wages, welfare services and jobs; and the commercial sectors, for whom they provided invest­ ment subsidies and protective tariffs. They nationalized key foreign-owned industries and utilities, and, with the qualified exception of Mexico, largely ignored the agrarian sector despite platform rhetoric.

Financing of import substitution initially came from foreign reserves built up during World War II. Once these were depleted, however, it became clear that internal mar­ kets for domestic consumer products were too limited to generate investment capital for new growth. Populist leaders were then forced to turn to inflationary monetary policies, including devaluations and price controls, which ultimately led to the need for austerity programs. The latter threatened the rising expectations of urban sectors and slowed growth. Even in the larger, more productive nations, such as Mexico and Brazil, the marginality of the rural and urban poor by 1960 was holding at about 50 per­ cent of the population, leaving these sectors at subsist- 9 ance levels or limited to basic food stuffs.

To continue their ambitious development projects, the populist regimes were forced to seek foreign aid and in­ vestments, thus running counter to their initial 22 nationalistic, anti-imperialistic rhetoric. The need for outside funding also came at a time when multinational cor­ porations were beginning to expand rapidly into Latin

American countries. Therefore, Latin American economic dependence on foreign markets and aid policies increased; domestic export sectors were forced to relinquish their freedom due to foreign trade agreements arranged by the populist governments. With inflation and arrested economic growth in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, populist regimes responded with greater state intervention in the economy, expansion of the public sector and proposals for more ex­ treme social legislation, frequently of an agrarian reform nature. Such reactions provoked fears among the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie that they would have to sacri­ fice to enable the government to financially realize its intensified programs and that class tensions and confronta­ tions would ensue. And, indeed, uneven development with advances for the urban masses without consonant investment of policy, capital, and services in the rural sector left a populist heritage of increased class conflict.

Populism proved that the overcoming of a dualistic legacy cannot be consensually accepted by the mid­ dle and upper classes if they have to bear the cost of it and have the means to impose alternative solutions. . . .10

The fortune of populism led to very different political routes in the 1960s. It was not surprising, then,' that right-wing military coups occurred in many Latin American countries during that decade: in Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela, for example. Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia,

Uruguay and Peru fell to military authoritarian regimes during the 1960s. Cuba presented an entirely different reaction with a socialist revolution following Fidel

Castro's rise to power in 1959. However, in the 1960s, re­ form was to predominate. Peru's military regime devoted its focus to agrarian and social reformism. Chile and

Venezuela would follow democratic reformist models ideolog­ ically committed to agrarian reform. Other democratic reform-oriented nations since the 1950s included, at one time or another, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Bolivia.

With populist governments and nationalist policies running into economic crisis, urban discontent reached a high pressure point. Increasing leftist guerrila activity was encouraged by the success of Castro's 1959 Revolution.

Many of the democratic reform governments of the 1960s eagerly embraced the solutions posited by the 1960 Punta del Este conference in Uruguay which resulted in the 1961

Alliance for Progress, a program which provided United

States economic and military assistance to help stem revolu­ tionary movements, stabilize Latin American economies and governments, and encourage foreign investment. Alliance goals included land reform, social progress, more equitable income distribution, higher living standards and incomes 24

to allow self-sustaining development, industrialization and capital goods industrial development, increased literacy and life expectancy and the creation of "stable” investment climates.^ Kalman Silvert has noted the recognition by the Alliance promoters of the need for structural reform in

Latin America to break down internal barriers to develop­ ment. He cites the "impermeability" of the barriers between the lower-middle and upper-lower class Latin American sec­ tors which impede the full operation of the "trickle down system"* in the capital investment cycle and "limit the effective demand, inhibiting labor availability and mobil­ ity, and creating the kind of resentments that make massive 12 groups available for political extremism."

In return for direct aid and United States encourage­ ment to its business sectors to invest in Latin America, insurances against loss from expropriation, insurrection, and revolution were expected. It has been noted that the requisite improvement of foreign exchange positions, the stimulation of increased agrarian production through higher consumer prices, and the encouragement of devaluations to draw in foreign currency aggravated social tensions, the

* The "trickle down" theory means that if the general population is taxed and the government then subsidizes pro­ duction by bigger businesses, part of the income then earned by the bigger businesses will "trickle" down to the low income sectors over time. 25

diminishment of which was a major Alliance goal:

This contradiction between the proclaimed goals of social progress and economic development is one of the principle reasons for the failure of the Alliance. . . . It also explains why implementa­ tion of the Alliance has been accompanied by a decline in democratic liberties and a turn to dic­ tatorship and repression in so many countries.13

The Alliance was responsible for providing technical

and material aid to many Latin American militaries which

later either supported or directed increasingly authori­ tarian and repressive regimes. Despite being promoted as a self-help program under the auspices of the Organization of

American States, the Alliance in effect was an anticommunist military program, and military aid became a major percent- 14 age of the funds. Much of the nonmilitary aid was fun- neled through the Inter-American Development Bank in low- interest loans rather than through outright grants, funds were less than initially promised, and Latin American countries were frequently incapable, due to inexperience and mismanagement, of presenting the requisite well- formulated cohesive socioeconomic programs necessary to receive aid.

In general the Latin Americans refused or were unable to carry out structural reforms of their socioeconomic/political systems because the Alli­ ance for Progress served to buttress the position of those in power and to preserve stability rather than to bring reform.15

In addition to the Alliance's efforts to promote eco­ nomic reform, other interregional economic agreements 26

emerged at the end of the 1950s. These addressed internal

problems of limited markets and resources. The concept of

interregional economic integration gave rise to the Central

American Common Market formed in 1958. Its purpose was to

allow free trade, a common external tariff and an inte­

grated industrial program whereby the region's weak

resource base might be offset by providing a single produc­

tion source for a given product and a protected regional market to avoid duplication and reduce per-unit costs. Of

the interregional associations during the 1960s, CACM

achieved the highest growth of trade between 195 8 and

1965.^ However, the 1969 El Salvador-Honduras "soccer war" resulted in Honduras' almost complete withdrawal from

CACM and seriously undermined the future growth prospects 17 for the organization.

The Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA),

formed in 1960, set out to establish a tariff-free trade

area among its South American members. Unlike CACM, there was no industrial coordination of resource concentration

involved; however, the ultimate expectation was that co­ ordinated strategic industries would expand regionally,

interregional trade would increase under common protective 18 customs, and nontraditional exports would be promoted.

The necessary investment for such large-scale industry had

to come from a public sector which would be willing to put off rapid high returns in the interests of social and 27

long-run benefits. Additionally, uneven levels of already existing industrial development among participants neces­ sitated the politically delicate task of distributing investment to less developed areas in a more equitable 19 manner. Reorienting the Latin American bourgeois classes away from light industry and toward both integrated eco­ nomies and foreign competition has proven extremely diffi­ cult. Economic diversity and different levels of industrial sectors and markets also mediate against LAFTA's success.

Timetables for the elimination of tariffs have not been realized by and large, and interregional trade among members has accounted for only small percentages of their total foreign trade. In 1967, the Declaraci6n de Bogota was signed by Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, all

LAFTA members disappointed by the slow implementation and unimpressive results of the organization's programs. These five nations established the Andean Pact among themselves to create a common market, an internal credit extension corporation, and complementary industrial agreements. Imme­ diate success occurred in petrochemical production with preferences given to economically weaker Ecuador and 20 Bolivia. However, the vast differences among their political regimes and economics philosophies did not pro­ vide optimal conditions for cooperation. Also, American and international funding sources such as the International

Monetary Fund and World Bank have not been forthcoming in 28 21 support of interregional trade programs.

Attempts to avert revolution were made not only by

such institutions as the UN and OAS during the 1960s. The

Catholic Church also addressed the problem of social and

political injustice, and moved to support the forces of

reform. Within the Catholic Church division was apparent

between reactionary and reform forces over the legitimate

spheres of Church involvement in the social and political

lives of its parishioners. Practical involvement of priests with the urban working classes was adapted throughout Latin

America from worker-priest experiments in southern Europe.

This was especially true in Argentina, and gave rise to the

leftist religio-political Third World Priest Movement known as Tercermundismo. The separation of religious and secular activities became untenable for many clergy among the poor and working classes, and they moved toward a "theology of liberation" that related religious teaching to contemporary 22 "historical process." Such an idea was based on the principle of the equality of all men and called into ques­ tion sociopolitical relationships entailing domination and oppression. It championed the cause of the proletariat, 23 the poor, and the peasants. The Church's role in the realnof social reform had been cautiously defined as far back as 1891 by Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum. It addressed the problem of the waning attraction of Roman Catholicism among labor 29 classes and called for the protection of the worker from exploitation and social injustices. The encyclical gave rise to urban worker organization promoted by the clergy.

The 1961 encyclical, Mater et Magistra, focused specifical­ ly on the social questions of underdeveloped nations and on the responsibility of elites to hasten socioeconomic re­ forms; in the process, it encouraged the Catholic clergy to social activism. The Second Vatican Council also promoted social and political justice, a cause vigorously adopted by individual clergy in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, for example, not to mention other countries where a leftist sector in the clergy also emerged. Strong Christian demo­ cratic or Christian socialist political movements emerged in Chile and Venezuela in the 1960s. Certain reformist sectors of the clergy became increasingly radicalized and militant in Brazil and Argentina, for example.

With the United States, the Church, and the inter­ regional organizations externally pressuring for reform since the beginning of the decade, various military and democratic governments made economic reform their major internal goal. Military coups had been a frequent occur­ rence in Latin America during the three past decades, usually leading to the replacement of one civilian govern­ ment with another. Earlier coups tended to maintain con­ servative leaders and traditional regimes in post-Depres- sion economic and social crises. Later, they served also 30 to unseat dictators and pave the way for democratic govern- 24 ments. However, a marked change was apparent in the early 1960s when military leaders set up and headed more permanent and authoritarian military regimes than in the post-Depression period. Propelled now by desires to estab­ lish political order and stability and to promote economic growth, the military extended the parameters of its tradi­ tionally authoritarian role to encompass economic develop- mentalism. Some military regimes chose a progressive modernist approach that encouraged industrial growth and preserved the social status quo, as in the case of Brazil since 1964 and Argentina since 1966.* Others moved in a radical reformist direction, emphasizing structural reform 25 and mass mobilization, as occurred m Peru in 1968.

Despite the military assumption of social reform con­ cerns in consonance with national economic development through state capitalism, democratic political participation

* Labels such as radical and progressive reform are tricky at best and vary from writer to writer in specific application to a given Latin American nation. For example, Gary Wynia characterizes Peru's military regime of 1968 as an adherent of progressive modernization whereas Argentina and Brazil exemplified conservative modernization. Helio Jaguaribe would consider Peru as an adherent of radical re­ formism and Argentina and Brazil in the progressive modern­ ization tradition. Both critics, despite different labels, perceive the same general characteristics with regard to each regime. For the purpose of this overview, I shall follow Jaguaribe's terminology since it is based on struc­ tural distinctions regarding commitment of the different regimes to change or retention of varying sector partici­ pation, a distinction which is more useful to the approach here. 31

remained nominal in Peru regardless of its initial strategy

to redistribute wealth and power through the state and 26 create a new mass-based political structure. There was

little interest in developing a nationalist revolutionary party to work in coordination with the military, though popular mobilization, if not decision-making participation, was accomplished in Peru to a considerable degree. Politi­

cal parties, labor, peasant and industrial interest groups were replaced by a government corporatist hierarchy direct- 27 m g mass mobilization. All designated lands had been redistributed by 19 70, and extensive nationalization of foreign and domestic enterprises was undertaken. The mili­ tary had stepped in to replace the reformist Acci6n Popular government of Belafinde Terry when the latter failed to take a more strongly nationalistic initiative against the con- 2 8 servative and APRISTA parties1 attempts to slow reforms.

During the 1950s, Bolivia's radical reformist military sectors had attempted to create a nationalist revolutionary party (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario) to back its agrarian reform program. However, internal divisions be­ tween the left and right within the military, plus unilat­ eral seizures of land by peasants resulted in a series of military coups and countercoups throughout the 1960s, making Bolivia equally incapable of instituting a popular military coalition-based government dedicated to radical reform. Peru's less divided military avoided the political 32 instability of its Bolivian precursor but at the price of popular democratic participation.

Military authoritarianism in Argentina and Brazil in­ volved the closing down of political parties, the suspen­ sion of the constitution and political rights and the direction of national economic development powers by civilian technocrats under the watchful eyes of a military interested primarily in industrial growth and restrained popular demands. In both cases, the fear of popular con­ flict— militant labor sectors threatening a return of

Peronism in Argentina and increasing populist demagoguery by President Goulart who encouraged mass demonstrations and support of his government in Brazil— was a prime factor in military intervention, as was economic mismanagement. The military regimes of both Castello Branco in Brazil and Juan

Ongania in Argentina basically considered underdevelopment a product of mismanaged nationalism in the hands of poli­ ticians who had been poorly advised economically. They also opposed income redistribution policies and excessive 29 regulation of the private sectors. Such factors were to be combated by increased rural and especially industrial production and close ties to international markets through promotion of large industries, commercial farming, foreign and domestic investment and firm control of working class 30 and political sectors. Such direction brought real economic progress. Brazil reduced inflation from 100 percent in 1963 (under Goulart) to 23 percent after 1965

(under Marshall Castello Branco), while Argentina brought

its 1966 40 percent inflation rate (under Frondizi) down to 31 7.5 percent by 1969 (under General Ongania). Further­ more, by the late 1960s, both regimes experienced annual growth of their GNPs of above 6 percent. This economic growth reflected heavy foreign investment and multinational corporation input. For example, in 1969, the multinationals controlled 42 percent of manufacturing assets and 34 percent of all industrial assets in Brazil with the state control- 32 m g most of the remainder. Even prior to the 1966

Ongania regime, foreign investment and involvement in major industrial sectors in Argentina was impressive with 51 percent of the fifty largest industrial corporations under 33 foreign control. The price of economic growth in Argen­ tina and Brazil was the loss of democratic participation, a widening gap between the masses and the middle to upper- class sectors, and an increasing dependency on foreign economic investments and needs.

The potential political leverage of foreign investors throughout all Latin America cannot be underestimated, although foreign ownership of total Latin American assets is relatively minimal. Leverage usually derives from foreign investment in key industrial sectors. This is particularly true in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, where domestic political control of labor demands is 34 frequently in direct response to the desire to maintain favorable investment climates for foreign investors and the multinationals. Ongania froze labor's wages in Argentina, and the post-196 4 Castello Branco regime instituted an austere wage-price index for precisely such ends.

Progressive reformism through democratic political structures in the 1960s characterized the governments of

Chile and Venezuela. The Christian Democratic government of Eduardo Frei (1964-1970) and the Acci6n DemocrStica government of R6mulo Betancourt (1959-1964) and Ratil Leoni

(1964-1969) in Venezuela undertook to broaden popular political participation, to promote economic development, to encourage a socioeconomic nationalist reorientation, and to integrate rural and urban masses through agrarian re- 34 forms and employment and welfare policies. Both sought to diminish economic dependency on exports and curtail traditional elitism. Chile had had a long democratic tra­ dition of sociopolitical conflict resolution, whereas

Venezuela was faced with creating new democratic avenues for popular participation, and, like Frei's Chile, attempted to balance extreme leftist and rightist pressures through negotiation and compromise, though its factionalism was 35 somewhat worse than Chile's. Within Acci6n DemocrStica,

Betancourt faced a pro-Fidelista faction in 1960, further division in 1962 among moderate defectors, and in 1967 additional internal dissension over finding an acceptable 35 presidential candidate. Outside Acci6n Democrdtica,

Betancourt had the on-and-off support of the Christian

Democratic Party (COPEI) and the Republican Democratic

Union (URD). In Chile internal PDC division involved Frei supporters, a pro-socialist faction and a middle sector.

Like other 1960s reformist governments, Chile and

Venezuela received Alliance for Progress funds and United

States support designed to offset Castro's influence in the hemisphere. Both countries considered the United Nations

Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) formulas for modernization and economic development, which led to plans for structural changes to involve mass participation, especially through agrarian sector reforms, progressive income distribution, social integration, promotion of pro­ duction diversification and the rechanneling of exports 36 away from minerals. Nationalization of major mining com­ panies and utilities was undertaken. Due to increased revenues from oil such development was much easier for

Venezuela than for Chile. Oil permitted the financing of reform projects, of a burgeoning industrial sector, and of handsome indemnifications to nationalized foreign firms, a luxury denied to Frei in Chile where copper prices were suffering from depressed world markets. In Chile, land redistribution broke up large holdings whereas in Venezuela only "unproductive" lands were to be expropriated, a policy which sent the commercial and large landholders scurrying 36 to raise agricultural production to record level to avoid 37 expropriation. The bulk of redistributed lands m Vene­

zuela was already government owned, a fact which helped to mitigate conservative opposition to such reform. In the

1960s, 100,000 peasant families received lands in Venezula;

21.000 families benefited in Chile, far below the promised 3 8 100.000 figure. Betancourt's single centralized develop­ ment program received opposition party support, but Frei had to confront two opposition development programs.

Whereas Venezuelan oil revenues offset industrialization costs, Chile had to turn to foreign exchange resources to finance industrialization. Under these two constitutional democratic reform governments gains were made in the agrarian sector. In Chile, this was evidenced through in- 39 come redistribution which raised rural incomes 70 percent.

In Venezuela agricultural production was raised 58 per- 40 cent. Despite advances made in the agrarian and indus­ trial sectors by the end of the decade, wide gaps remained between the poorest 4 0 percent and the wealthiest 5 percent of each country's population. The poor received 13.4 percent of national income in Chile, and 10.3 percent in

Venezuela. The wealthiest received 30 percent in Chile and 41 40 percent in Venezuela.

The third political trend evidenced in the 1960s was that of revolution. It was sparked by the 1959 Cuban

Revolution and the subsequent communist government of Fidel Castro. Latin American communist and socialist

parties, many going back to the 1930s. reflected diverse

theoretical and organizational directions by the 1960s.

The differences were exacerbated by the successful guer­

rilla warfare tactics and ascendence of Castro's revolution.

Both within and without existing communist and socialist

parties, radical militant sectors variously espoused

Castroite and Maoist formulas or Neo-Marxist direc- 42 tions. The radical Catholic left considered Christian

Marxist alternatives. There was, however, a typical move

away from orthodox and Moscow-oriented communist organiza­

tion and an adoption of reformist rather than revolutionary

approaches within existing Latin American communist par­

ties. Theoretical divisions occurred among the various

communist, Marxist, and militant leftist groups over the question of the vanguard of the revolutionary movement, whether it should be composed of the rural masses, a com­

bination of rural and urban mass sectors, or primarily of

urban proletariat composition. The question of the pre­

conditions and the timing of revolution were also factors

leading to leftist ideological fragmentation. However, whether the commitment was to guerrilla or to mass peasant movements, all militant revolutionary groups recognized violence as the necessary catalyst for political and social

change. In this basic view they diverged from that of the

traditional Latin American communist parties, which 38 accepted "marginal" changes for their constituents and participation within the existing legal structures through 43 political party coalitions.

James Petras describes Latin American communist par­ ties in the 1960s as unable to adapt to the political needs of the moment by holding to the theory (in good Marxist fashion, one might add) that the current historical moment was the first of a two-stage revolution directed by a progressive bourgeoisie against landholding elites and

United States imperialism. It necessitated support of existing bourgeois political parties and the operation of the parties within legal bounds. This stage was to be fol- 44 lowed by a socialist revolution. Radical militants did not accept the premise that urban middle-class interests were in conflict with those of landowners or that those of national capitalist sectors conflicted with imperialist objectives. Rather, as shall be seen in the following chapters, the landed sector's identity and aspirations were considered aligned to the interests of urban industrial elites and benefited by the latter's compatibility with multinationals and other foreign interests.

Cuban strategies were adopted by small guerrilla groups in Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil; they worked to undermine military and civil authority by depriving these sectors of social support through a gradual war of attrition and by winning peasant, 39

urban and radical intelligentsia loyalties. Militant revo­

lutionaries in these nations oriented their appeal to social

classes and groups left out of traditional leftist and

communist spheres: the unorganized Indian and peasant popu- 45 lation and the unemployed urban workers.

The growth of the rural orientation both in Cuba and in other Latin countries was based on polit­ ical reality: the unavailability of political space in the urban milieu for creating a revolu­ tionary constituency.46

It should not be forgotten that within numerous coun­

tries more that just one militant revolutionary organization was in operation. This occurred, for example, in Venezuela,

where both the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion National (FALN)

and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) co­

existed, and in Guatemala where MR-13 and Fuerzas Armadas

de Rebelion (FAR) operated coincidentally.

Castro's revolution was not initiated by a mass-based

insurrection of either peasant or proletariat composition.

Its strike force was composed of a small cadre of students,

professionals, and lower middle-class sectors, and its

provocation was not ideologically based out pragmatically

directed to the overthrow of the corrupt and repressive

Batista government. The Marxist-Leninist direction of

Castro's revolution was a post-insurrection fact that

ultimately led to a complete social, economic and political

restructuring of Cuban institutions. Fidal Castro and loyal

26th of July movement supporters formed a strong 40 centralized executive supported by a state bureaucracy and revolutionary party. ^

At first glance the Mexican political structure ap­ pears quite similar, but its revolutionary party, PRI, is corporatist in nature, works within a pluralist society rather than within the homogeneous Cuban society, does not have a clear ideology for the structuring of its society, and its presidency and state posts are elective. The

Cuban bureaucracy, as of the mid-1970s, was manned through an electoral process, whereas the Mexican bureaucracy was 4 8 comprised essentially of patronage positions. The Mexi­ can Revolution promotes socialism with hundreds of state- controlled enterprises and peasant ejidos but also func­ tions economically through capitalist structures comprised of domestic and foreign firms and commercial farms.

Thus, the 1960s were characterized by democratic reform models, military authoritarian regimes and revolu­ tionary governments which opted for reforms through either pacific or violent means. In the body of this work representative countries of these political models will be presented in greater detail and specific examples of the political theatre they engendered discussed and analyzed.

But first, it is necessary to develop an overview of polit­ ical theatre in the 1960s as part of the general dramatic environment from which these plays emerged. Political theatre in the 1960s reflected the critical

choice between reform and revolution confronting many

Latin American regimes fearful of the shock effects of the

Cuban Revolution reverberating throughout their militant

leftist sectors. Whereas sociopolitical theatre enjoyed a

long tradition prior to 1959, it was after that date that

both seasoned and aspiring new dramatists addressed with

increasing frequency national social and political prob­

lems from more than a descriptive and interpretative per­

spective. Now ideological commitment, if not at least the need to deal directly with political ideology, became a

concern among playwrights, many of whom realized that "it

does not suffice to tell the truth but only to tell it 49 purposefully." That purpose ranged from public conscious­ ness raising to the promotion of prescriptive measures to

alleviate or end social and political injustices. By 1970, political theatre had become the dominant dramatic direc­ tion. Its salient features included: 1) a distinct his­

torical perspective which frequently referred to past figures and events considered for their analagous contem­ porary relevance, 2) a strongly critical if not condemnatory tone expressed in clear political ideological commitment,

3) a focus on the masses in general and on the marginal sectors in particular, 4) a reliance on humor whether through farce, satire, or black humor, 5) and an increas­ ingly frequent expression through Brechtian techniques 42 and through collectively written works.

Spanish American theatre in the twentieth century has generally been characterized as evolving through several stages. During the first half of the century, the pre­ dominant modes were socially oriented realistic theatre and vanguard approaches. Specialized tendencies occurred regionally in the Gauchesque theatre and the sainete criollo in the Rio del Plata, exhibiting costumbrista ele- 50 ments. Regionalism played a major role in the generation of realists such as Florencio SSnchez, Roberto Payro,

Antonio Acevedo Hernandez, Federico Gamboa and Jos6 Antonio

Ramos for example.^

During the same period, alternative and opposite directions to the exterior orientation of naturalism and realism emerged in a theatre increasingly concerned with the imagination, the oniric, the unknown, the magical and the fantastic. In Europe, for example, these were ex­ pressed in the works of Cocteau, Giraudoux, Valle-Incl&n, 52 Lorca and Casona. This antirealist direction influenced, as did the antirealist and poetic spirit of the modernist movement, vanguard Spanish American playwrights of the 1920s and the formative years of the generation of 192 7 drama­ tists. Grinor Rojo has seen strong appeal and reflection of the commedia dell'arte, of the concept of "teatro en teatro," and of the rebellious figure of Don Juan in the works of dramatists in the 1920s and 1930s (Luis Enrique 43

Osorio, Salvador Novo, Armando Moock, Celestino Gorostiza,

Conrado Nal6-Roxlo) as signs of the rupture with the real- 53 ist-naturalist tradition. The conflict between realism and vanguard was crystalized in Mexico in the 1930s in the polemic between the national, politically-oriented theatre of the Teatro de Ahora and the foreign-influenced and exoticist (whether through fantasy or the theatricalization 54 of theatre) of the Teatro de Ulises. The movement toward the exotic or unusual beyond empirical explanation was expressed in plays influenced by surrealism, the realm of the subconscious and the dream world.

The interiorization of dramatic focus from that of external regional and environmental ambiance to the indi­ vidual protagonist was receptive to and reflective of the influences of Freud. Hidden, internal effects upon charac­ ter and behavior were explored by dramatists such as

Armando Moock, Francisco Defellipis Novoa, Carlos Salvafto

Campos, and German Luco Cruchago, who had intuitively begun to incorporate them in their dramas prior to the 1930s, by which time personality and psychology became central to works of 55 dramatists such as Roberto Arlt, for example. The move from rural to urban environments provided dramatists rich areas for analysis of psychological isolation and aliena­ tion in the metropolis. By the 1940s, however, psycho­ analysis in theatre had been placed in perspective as but one factor germaine to understanding human behavior, an 44 evolution in attitude which Rojo sees exemplified especially in the dramatic works of Xavier Villarrutia.'*^ Gerardo

Luzuriaga has noted that whether the inspiration of the van­ guard writers between 1920 and 1950 comes from Freud,

Pirandello, or Marx, that whether their themes are social or psychological, their approaches surrealistic or expressionistic,

Intentan . . . ofrecer una visi6n mSs profunda, mSs universal, mcLs trascendente de la realidad individ­ ual y social del hombre latinoamericano, inter- pretando esa realidad, y no s61o describiSndola, como lo hacian los escritores de la generaci6n anterior.57

By the post-1950s, playwrights not only described and interpreted that reality but took strong critical and con­ demnatory stances toward it. Frank Dauster characterizes this contemporary period of 1950 to the present as reflec­ tive of two major dramatic currents, the compenetration of foreign writers such as Miller, Williams, Beckett,

Ionesco, Osborne and Brecht in Spanish American works, with

Brechtian epic theatre of the most far-reaching impact, and, secondly, the theatre of the absurd with its anti- 5 8 realist approach. He notes the rising importance of political agitational theatre related to the drama of Weiss and Hochhuth, a growing tendency toward ritual theatre, and collective works as the principle trends of the 1960s and early 1970s. ^ 45

Pedro Bravo-Elizondo approaches contemporary theatre

from its conflictual basis, either conflict between the

collectivity and the controlling social and political sys­

tems or conflict between the individual and his environ­ ment, with the underlying common denominator of both

directions being open rebellion as the only response to 6 0 injustice. By the end of the 1960s, the theme of the

opposition between the collectivity and the sociopolitical

system becomes increasingly evident in a theatre reliant

upon various scenic techniques of expressionism and the

Brechtian epic theatre format. It can be argued that even some of the theatre considered by Bravo-Elizondo as ori­ ented toward the individual is really representative of the collectivity; Egon Wolff's Los invasores is really a discussion of class conflict, of collectivities in con­ frontation rather than of the individual protagonist's personal dilemma, for example.

Historically, national theatre throughout Latin

America has been beset by a series of widely noted ob­ stacles: lack of government and public financial support and interest, a limited audience comprised typically of students and university intellectuals from the upper-class and bourgeois sectors, increasing competition from tele­ vision and cinema which have drained off talent to these more lucrative enterprises, the competition of commercial boulevard theatres dedicated primarily to light musicals, 46

comedies and standard classics from the European and North

American traditions, lack of theatre houses, and censor­

ship.

National theatre received its major impetus and sus­

tained support from the universities in the post-World War

II years and from small independent theatres dedicated to nationally inclusive repertoires. Additionally, the Castro

Revolution provided not only Cuban playwrights but dramatists

throughout all Latin America with a forum and audience for political theatre. Casa de las Americas instituted a much needed publication organ for the dissemination of dramatic works. Much of the outstanding theatre of Latin America has been made available through Casa de las Americas and its drama journal Conjunto.

The promotion of traveling theatres, known as carpas, for audiences outside the national capitals has been greatly inspired by the success of the traveling and re­ gional theatrical companies in Cuba. Their revolutionary concepts of a people's theatre have circumvented the eco­ nomic problems associated with permanent theatre houses and limited elite audiences and have been adopted elsewhere in the 1960s, in Chile, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, for example. Within Cuba itself, the Teatro Nacional, created in 1960, provided adequate livelihoods and support for all dramatists, actors and directors for the first time any­ where in Latin America. By 1963, the Teatro Nacional had 47 branches in Camaguey, Pinar del Rio, Oriente, Matanzas and

Las Villas.^ The Consejo Nacional de Cultura was formed in 1961 and sponsored a Teatro Infantil in the same year.

The Teatro Nacional de Guifiol appeared in 196 3. The

Escuela de Artes DramSticas was established in 1961 to train qualified personnel to direct the numerous theatre groups 6 2 throughout the island. On January 1, 1959, only one

Cuban play was being presented in Havana, but from that date to the end of 1970, 392 Cuban works were presented throughout Cuba, not to mention scores of other Latin

American works and international dramas.

In addition to the focus provided to national drama in

Cuba, other Latin American governments and university theatres began to sponsor interamerican theatre festivals to boost the dramatic arts. The most important of these has been the Festival Latinoamericano of the Teatro Uni- versitario de Manizales in Colombia, begun in 196 8.

Colombia's theatre since the mid-1950s had been markedly political with the fall of the Rojas Pinilla dictatorship and the formation of the Teatro Escuela in Cali in 1955 under the direction of Enrique Buenaventura. It eventually evolved into the renowned Teatro Experimental de Cali (TEC) in 1962. In 195 8, the Colombian independent theatre move­ ment began with the creation of the experimental group El

Buho, from which Carlos Jos6 Reyes and Santiago Garcia received their first support. The Ministry of Education 48 64 initiated the first national theatre festivals in 1957.

With the Colombian government drive to put down guer­ rilla movements, Marxist revolutionaries,and agitational sectors among the urban proletariat in the early 1960s, workers strikes became more and more frequent and alli­ ances began to form between the workers' movements and the increasingly militant campesino sectors. These movements and the influence of the Cuban revolutionary process had a decided effect on the Colombian university and subsequently on its theatre.

Las movilizaciones anti-imperialistas— como en el caso de la invasi6n a Repdblica Dominicana en 1965— y en torno al proceso cubano tienen car&cter masivo y se dan concomitantemente a los intentos organizativos del estudiantado que se concretan en la FUN (Federaci6n Universitaria Nacional). Es claro que este clima impregna e influencia en el teatro que comienza a desarrollarse en la universi- dad. La prSctica se cuestiona politlcamente, socialmente.65

The year 1966 saw the rise of the first permanent in­ dependent theatre, Casa de la Cultura, which would later become Teatro La Candelaria. In 196 8 similar groups ap­ peared: Teatro La Mama, the Teatro Popular de Bogota, and

TEC's theatre house in Cali. Neighborhood, high school and union theatres sprouted up. It has been noted that

estas salas, verdaderos medios de producci6n teatral, permiten un desarrollo mucho mfis con- tinuado y coherente de los grupos y llevan a cuestionar la relaci6n del teatro con el pdblico reducido, compuesto en su mayor parte por estudiantes, intelectuales, y peguefio-burgese’s, planteando la posibilidad y la necesidad de un ptiblico amplio y p o p u l a r . Pablo Azc&rate additionally notes the passing of theatre festivals to the university arena by 1966, where excessive political sectarianism led to the eventual demise of the university theatre movement and its festivals, whose direction then passed to the independent theatre movement organized into the Corporaci6n Colombiana de Teatro (CCT) in late 196 9, "un teatro popular, proletarizado, que cumple un papel social y politico en el combate por la nueve 6 7 sociedad," and which has been closely allied to the leftist workers movement. As TEC became more and more politicized and under government scrutiny, especially with the closing down of Buenaventura's La trampa in 1966, government support began to diminish within the theatre movements, and in 196 8 TEC was forced out of the Escuela

Departmental de Bellas Artes of the Universidad de Cali and became independent by 1970.

If I have emphasized the Colombian case in some detail, it is because its process characterizes similar develop­ ments in other Latin American countries, especially in

Chile, which will be discussed in Chapter III below. The important element to note for Colombian contemporary theatre history is the gradual movement away from avant-garde

European theatre directed to small intellectual and bour­ geois audiences toward urban and rural proletariat audiences with concommitant changes in organizational structures and selected repertoires stressing national and participational 50 theatre. This has occurred in both university and inde­ pendent theatre movements. The independent theatres, such as ARENA in Brazil, El Golp6n in Uruguay, El Teatro Nacional

Popular in Venezuela, ICTUS, ALEPH and the theatre of CUT in

Chile, and Libre Teatro Libre in Argentina, became in­ creasingly politicized in the late 1960s, openly committed to agitational political drama, heavily reliant on Brechtian techniques and those of the Living Theater, and increasingly drawn to collective theatre.

Given problems of government censorship, many political playwrights sought to disguise their criticism through in­ direct historical analogies and humor. Some left the theatre and turned to other genres such as the short story and novel. Often they continued to write theatre in the expectation of later publication and production, and many ceased to write altogether. Censorship was particularly strong under military authoritarian regimes, as, for example, that in Argentina, especially in 1967, when both national and foreign plays were closed down in Buenos Aires.

Rofolfo Walsh’s La granada (1964) and La batalla (1964), both highly satirical and critical of military life and political influence, were indirectly censored through sudden municipal inspections which closed down the theatres in 6 8 which they were playing. In 196 8, the Brazilian govern- 69 ment required all scripts to be submitted for approval, and this often resulted in long production delays highly 51

damaging to the "precarious" economic management of the 70 theatre houses. Barbara Heliodoro has noted the erratic

and illogical nature of much of Brazilian censorship which

also characterizes censorship in countries such as Mexico,

Argentina, and Colombia:

uno de los aspectos m^s angustiosos de la censura brasilefia es justamente lo que tiene de incoherente, de inesperado y de incompetente. Nadie puede saber nunca por qu6 se prohibe o se corta alguna cosa, cuando las mismas cosas (y a veces otras mds enfd- ticas, radicales y violentas) fueron dichas la ^ semana anterior o podrfin decirse la semana prdxima.

In' the censorship of Buenaventura's play La trampa, which satirized the military dictatorship of a Guatemalan general, the dramatist was informed by the Ministry of

Education what would and would not be permitted. The director told him:

Yo le voy a hablar como amigo. Usted, como autor de teatro que es muy considerado y muy estimado, no deberia escribir esta clase de obras, porque esto lo lleva precisamente a que le quiten los pre- supuestos. Usted, como autor de teatro, no escriba sobre esos temas. . . . Usted no puede escribir aqui sobre tres cosas: ni sobre el clero, ni sobre la oligarqula, ni sobre el ej6rcito.?2

The Venezuelan government of R6mulo Betancourt pro­ hibited Romcln Chalbaud's Sagrado y obsceno in 1961, not for its overt attack on the government but for its profane lan- 73 guage. Censorship on "moral" grounds has been a typical measure taken against politically charged and critical theatre throughout Latin America. In Mexico, Chilean play­ wright and promoter of vanguard European writers (such as 52

Beckett, Ionesco and Arrabal) Alexandro Jodorowsky had his productions and his own plays frequently shut down during 73 the 1950s for moral and religious disrespect. However, although sexually overt theatre is now commonplace both on the stage and on television in Mexico, censorship still exists.• ^ 74

Despite the tremendous government encouragement of

Cuban art during the 1960s (from the artistic work itself to its production process), Fidel Castro's "Palabras a los intelectuales" in July, 1961, limited artistic theme and style to expressions supportive of the Revolution: "Dentro de la Revolucidn todo, contra la Revoluci6n, nada."

Castro's three speeches addressed the problem of artistic freedom raised by the controversy over the scope and direction of Lunes de Revoluci6n, a widely-read cultural supplement to Carlos Franqui's Revolucidn, edited by

Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Pable Armando Fernandez, which provoked the criticism of the Party leadership over the journal's autonomy and eclectic and often Western- 75 oriented content. Many acclaimed and productive Cuban playwrights ceased writing or imposed a form of self­ censorship on their writings after the mid-1960s: Ant6n

Arrufat, Abelardo Estorino, Virgilio Pifiera, Jos6 Triana,

Jos6 Brene, and Hector Quintero, among others, probably for such reasons as artistic freedom or from inability or disinterest in finding new forms to appeal to the masses 53

through a socially realistic and didactic theatre. Both

Virgilio Pifiera and Jos6 Triana were imprisoned in Cuba over the question of artistic freedom as were many other writers. The production of Ant6n Arrufat's Los Siete contra Tebas (196 8) unleashed a further polemic of eventual international reverberation in conjunction with the Caso

Padilla (discussed in Chapter II below) over artistic free­ dom within the Revolution. Arrufat and other Cuban writers were verbally sanctioned for evasive theatre through both classical reworkings and absurdist drama (Arrufat's,

Triana's, and Pifiera's forte), criticized as anti-

Revolutionary for their elitist expression. Such criti­ cism is frequently leveled by purist leftist ideologues against vanguard and absurdist dramas throughout all Latin

America since social realism is, of course, the acceptable dramatic format for purposes of mass communication, educa­ tion and consciousness raising.

Yet, absurdist drama was not an infrequent dramatic mode during the 1960s for dramatists seeking to make direct or indirect political statements; Egon Wolff's Flores de papel (Chile, 1970), Griselda Gambaro's El campo (Argentina,

1968), Enrique Buenaventura's El menfi (Colombia, 1970),

Ricardo Monti's Una noche con el Seflor Magnus e hijos

(Argentina, 1970), Virgilio Pifiera's Dos viejos panicos

(Cuba, 1968), and Jos6 Triana's La noche de los asesinos

(Cuba, 1966), are but a few of several obvious examples. 54

Even within the Cuban absurdist drama of that decade a case has been made by Terry Palls that its well-known dramatists, raised and educated within a capitalist society, responded logically through the absurdist expression to the "dis­ orientation and inconformity" that the Revolution posed for them:

The shift in political direction necessitated a re­ examination of social values and the absurd theatre was particularly well suited to the expression of disorientation which this change implied. The Cuban absurdist playwrights did not seek to criti­ cize the revolutionary society since the majority were in agreement with the principles of the Revolu­ tion. Rather they focused on the problems which arise from man's feelings of insecurity and his at­ tempts to impart some order to his world in an effort to control it, establish his identity, and clarify his role in this changing society. In these plays man is stripped of his accidental social position and historical context and examined in the light of his human condition alone: objective reality as an end therefore become irrelevant. The subjective interpretation of the essence of the human condi­ tion in relationship to society becomes the basis for the dramatic metaphor.78

The reworking of past historical situations and the portrayal of historical leaders had been a long-lived tradition in the theatre which survived into the 196 0s.

Venezuelan playwright CSsar Rengifo consciously worked through history in relation to socioeconomic sectors, whether to specific moments such as the 1865 Civil War in

Lo que dej6 la tempestad (1961), to specific figures such as the heroes of the wars of independence in Maria Rosa

Nava (1968), to specific past problems of civil war such as slavery and its abolition in Los hombres y los cantos 55 amargos (1967), or to the current general myths of petro­ leum wealth. Rengifo's sociohistorical theatre treats figures and events "sospechosamente olvidados" from a

Marxist perspective that highlights their revolutionary and evolutionary character through social realism, thereby ex- 79 pressing historical revisionism through drama.

Also writing in a similar social-realism and histori­ cal vein during the decade was the Chilean Elizalde Rojas.

Like Rengifo, he focused on the three sectors of peasants, miners and urban workers from a proletarian perspective.

Elizalde Rojas turned to instances of large-scale massacres in Chilean history in his Los insurrectos (1960), El pi!6n

(1961), Tierra de Dios (1962), Santa Marla (1966) and

Recuento (1967). Santa Maria deals with the 20 or so strikes occurring between 1840 and 1870 among workers, peasants and dockers, while Recuento resurrects the 1907 massacre claiming some 2,000 lives of miners and their 80 families. Chile produced a number of playwrights in addition to Elizalde Rojas whose dramatic productions of the 1960s reinvestigated national historical events rele­ vant to its current Christian Democratic conscience:

Fernando Debesa's Bernardo O ’Higgins (1961) and El guerrero de la paz and Fernando Cuadra's Rancagua 1814 (1960).

In Mexico, Elena Garro's Felip.e Angeles (1967) por­ trayed a leading general of the Mexican Revolution in order to talk about the betrayal of the on-going Revolution. 56

Luisa Josefina Hernandez' didactic theatre of the 1960s brought attention to Mexican provincial life and the plight of rural indian sectors in her reworking of historical events under Porfirio Diaz regarding the Yaquis in La paz ficticia (1960). Her Esccindalo de Puerto Santo (1962) and her Historia de un anillo (1967) further dealt with the general problems of rural political corruption and racism.

Hernandez additionally turned to indian figures and myths in Popul Vuh (1967) and Quetzacoatl (1968) focusing on an­ other aspect of national history, an interest shared by

Argentinian Osvaldo Dragfin in his earlier 1957 Tupac Amaru about the Peruvian indian colonial and racist-class war of

1780-81, a theme also treated by Peruvian Edgardo Per6z

Luna in La rebeli6n (1962). In 1963, Bernardo Canal

Feijoo's Tungasuka in Argentina focused on the force of the collectivity in the making of a revolutionary leader, in 81 this case, Tupac Amaru's rebellion against the Spanish.

Contemporary historical circumstances received atten­ tion by the late 1960s, frequently expressed through documentary and Brechtian epic theatre. In 1968, a col­ lective effort produced the documentary drama Proceso a un proceso in Chile directed by Gustavo Meza about the trial of Regis Debray in Bolivia. The goal of the production, explained by its director, was typical of the documentary/ epic theatre approach and characterized the new political 57 drama's revolutionary theme and intent for audience activa­ tion:

Mi primer preocupaci6n fue pedir que por ningfin motivo deberlamos recurrir a los moldes que des- afortunadamente son tan habituales en este tipo de actos: discurso, canci6n-protesta y fundal- mente la lamentaci6n est6ril de "salvacionismo- revolucionario" que s61o logra reafirmar en el auditorio que "es muy desafortunada su existencia, g2 muy mala la burguesia, y muy malo el imperialismo."

In 1968, Mexican novelist Vincente Lefiero produced the contemporary epic drama Pueblo rechazado. It deals with the case of the Benedictine Padre Lemercier's utilization of psychoanalysis on the clergy. The ultimate issues are the church's role in a modern society and a need for its re-evaluation, with consequent political implications. In

1971, his Estudio Q dealt with the 0breg6n assassination trial of Jos£ de Leon and Madre Conchita, but his major political drama has been Compafiero (1970) about Che

Guevara, dealing with the psychological aspects of politi­ cal commitment and involvement of the individual. Pilar

Retes1 Octubre termin6 hace mucho tiempo (196 8) dramatized in documentary fashion the Tlatelolco student and civilian massacre by Mexican government forces. On the other hand,

Chilean Jorge Diaz' Topografia de un desnudo (1967) chose absurdist theatre techniques to expose the July 15, 1961,

Brazilian government and police liquidation of some 30 marginal poor at the Guanabara garbage dumps as a .pur­ ported recourse to solve the misery of poverty, while in actuality the dump residents were annihilated to clear the 58 area for a housing development. Diaz has commented on the role of history among contemporary Latin American play­ wrights :

At present, Chilean playwrights find themselves faced with the same problem that confronts theatre artists on the entire continent: to find a theatre for Latin America that is a stethoscopic reading of our social reality. And each day of this reality becomes more filled with conflict, less predictable, more desperate. Most of us feel we're in a pre­ revolutionary situation. Of course, many writers claim that politics doesn't interest them and that they only want to write about the human condition, but any honest approach to Latin American man leads them directly to his social context and commits them to a dynamic vision of history.84

In addition to social realist, epic, documentary, and absurd theatre to convey political protest and thought,

Greek classical drama has also served certain dramatists as a vehicle of political comment since the 1950s. Margaret

Sayers Peden wrote of Mexican playwrights that

From the time of the first experimental theaters it is difficult to think of a major Mexican play­ wright who has not at some point in his career written or translated a play that takes a refer­ ence, a theme, or a hero from Greek myth.85

She relates this fact to Mexico being a "myth oriented culture," but the connection of many of the playwrights she cites to the traditions of European imitation charac- 86 terizing the Teatro Ulises should also be kept in mind.

She refers to Salvador Novo, Rodolfo Usigli, Emilio

Carballido, Luisa Josefina HernSndez, Sergio Magafia, Luis

Basurto, Wilberto Canton and Hector Azar as involved in the 59 87 reworking of Greek symbols and themes. Azar's Olimpica

(1962) and Magafia's Los signos del Zodiaco (1963) relate

the dilemmas of the Greek gods to those of the urban mar- 8 8 ginal classes within a social protest perspective. How­

ever, it is Emilio Carballido's Medusa (1956) which uses

Greek myth to present "a modern allegory with philosophical

and political implications" that can be read as both an 89 "existential and a political allegory." Critic Tamara

Holzapfel points to the play's promise of political revolu­

tion on the part of Mexico's idealist youth (Perseus)

fighting for moral and political autonomy against North

American imperialism (Polydectes) and the gods of political 90 demagoguery. Antonio Magafta-Esquivel considered the play a "drama palpitante de nuestra lucha entre la dictadura y 91 la democracia."

Osvaldo Dragdn's 1956 La peste viene de Melos also relied on the settings of classical antiquity (the uprising of Melos against Athens in 416 B.C.) to condemn Argentina's commercial dependence on the United States. Equally damnable as the colonial imperialist forces in Dragdn's version are the national commercial bourgeois sectors de­ sirous of maintaining internal order and stability at the 92 cost of national autonomy for individual material gain.

One can associate the 1954 United States CIA military sup­ port of Guatemalan exiles to topple the Arbenz government as recent historical precedence for Dragdn's condemnation. In 196 8, two plays were written with obvious political

intent: Antdn Arrufat's Cuban drama Los siete contra Tebas

based on the work of the same name by Aeschylus (See Chap­

ter II) and Puerto Rican dramatist Luis Rafael Sanchez' La pasidn segun Antigona P^rez based on Sophocles' Antigone.

Arrufat's close but refocused rendition of the Greek model posits the Revolution's problems of a nation divided between

collective nationalism and individual freedom, between exiles and revolutionaries, between autonomy and imperial­

ism. S&nchez sets his drama in a typical Spanish American republic under a police state led by a military dictator.

George Woodyard describes it as "a complex interplay of existentialist thought and Brechtian techniques, with

liberal portions of Greek myth, the Bible, history, and a 93 Spanish reality. ..." The despot Creon, desirous of

continuing the material prosperity he has fathered in his country, maintains his political control through terror and repression, supported by the Church and those citizens who either fear him or see his control as politically 94 expedient and m their own interests. The focus is on individual political freedom.

Social and political protest theatre, as has already been noted, has existed more or less consistently since the 19 30s in Latin America. During the 1950s this theatre placed strong emphasis on exposure of social injustices and conflicts on the family unit and its individual members. Usually such criticism was made from and to a bourgeois

perspective that questioned moral or ethical voids posited by an increasingly mechanized and industrialized society where economic, social and political "advancement" were

corollaries of acceptance and conformity to upper-class standards achieved by rising through the middle-class or bourgeois hierarchy. The scope and limit of individual

freedom and autonomy were a prime concern, especially within the urban environment subject to the oppression of economic exploitation. One thinks instantly of Augustin

Cuzzani's Una libra de carne (1954), El centroforward murid al amanecer (1955) and Sempronio (1957).

Rural migration to the cities had been a continuing problem since the turn of the century in most Latin Ameri­ can countries and the resulting crisis of alienation and poverty was duly commented upon in the theatre. However, geographic displacement and urban unemployment produced a new dramatic focus in the 1960s as emphasis passed from the bourgeois and proletarian classes to the marginal classes of mendicants, criminals, and low-life strata.

Concommitantly, the plight of the campesino, and of the rural proletariat, was also stressed, encouraged as it was by hemispheric interest in economic development as pro­ moted by both the Alliance for Progress and the Cuban

Revolution. The former stressed economic problems, and the latter class structures, a combination of infinite appeal and thematic richness for the traditionally leftist

intellectual and artistic communities with their varying

degrees of Marxist commitment and ideology. The interest

in national identity that had provoked historical inter­

ests and revisionism meshed with the concept of dynamic

class evolution and conflict. Interest in rural and urban

revolts of the historical past were connected to contem­

porary tensions within these sectors. The role of the

protagonist moved from the individual to the collectivity

and the plight of sectors within a given nation was used to

present thesis dramas of didactic and consciousness-

raising intent. Gradually the emphasis upon description of

problems involved turned to a causative focus leading to

evaluations of social, economic, and political structues

and eventually to political alternatives: the direction of

the Alliance or that of the Cuban Revolution, reform or

revolution.

Major themes developing in this sector-oriented theatre of the 1960s (urban, rural, marginal and Indian) included

class conflict, bourgeois materialism, political corruption,

family schisms addressing the passivity, conformity and acceptance by the older generations of traditional order at the cost of compromising personal and national values, the role of the military and police, torture and violence, anti­ imperialism, and the role of the artist in repressive societies. 63

Drama involving the collective plight of the rural proletariat in the mining sectors included Josi Chests

Aranguis's El umbral (Chile, 1960), Gilberto Pinto's El rinc6n del diablo (Venezuela, 1961), and Elizalde Rojas'

Santa Maria (Chile, 1966). Examples of the Indian focus include Maria Asunci6n Requena's Ayayema (Chile, 1964), mentioned above, and Elena Garro's El irbol (1967) which alludes to a threatening potential class conflict.

Theatre dealing with provincial politics and the campesino sector included Elizalde Rojas' Tierra de Dios

(Chile, 1962) ; Emilio Carballido's Un pequefio dia de ira

(1962) and iSilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maiz1 (Mexico, 196 3), the two latter both employing Brech- tian techniques; Luisa Josefina Hernandez' Historia de un anillo (Mexico, 1967); Carlos Somigliana's Amarillo

(Argentina, 1965) about banana workers; Abelardo Estorino's

El robo del cochino (Cuba, 1961); Zapata Olivella's El retorno de Cain (1962) dealing with rural violence in

Colombia; and Isidora Aguirre's evaluative and proscriptive

Los que van quedando en el camino (Chile, 1969), a Brech- tian epic play discussed in Chapter III below.

Urban bourgeois and proletariat conflict served as the focus of Nicolas Dorr's absurdist La esquina de los con- sejales (Cuba, 1962), Andris Lizirraga's biting Brechtian inspired musical satire Jack el destripador (Argentina,

196 7), and the collective grotesque political work of 64

Cossa, Somigliana, Talesnik, and Rozenmacher in El avi6n

negro (Argentina, 1970). Attacks on urban bourgeois moral­

ity, capitalism and corruption were abundant in Argentina

through the theatre of Dalmiro Saenz, Hip . . . hip . . .

ufa (1967); Roberto Cossa, Nuestro fin de semana (1964) ;

Carlos Gorostiza, Vivr aqui (1964); Osvaldo Dragtan, Herdica

de Buenos Aires (1966); and Ricardo Monti, Historia ten-

denciosa de la clase media (1971). In Cuba, Josd Triana's

La muerte del Neque (1963) employed ritual in an exposd of pre-Revolution urban political exploitation and corruption;

Virgilio Pifiera realistically described the stagnant climate

of bourgeois values and life in Aire frio (1962), and his

absurdist Dos viejos p&nicos (196 8) dealt with the terror of breaking out of bourgeois patterns. Guatemala's Manuel

Galich has been a consistently politically committed drama­

tist through farse and satire attacking bourgeois material­

ism: El pescado indigesto (1961), Pascual Abah (1966), and

El Gltimo cargo.

Chile's Egon Wolff's 1963 Los invasores was perhaps one of the hallmarks of Latin American political theatre with its staged invasion of the bourgeois world by the mar­ ginal classes of Santiago. The invasion implied profound

and threatening political consequences. Written from a bourgeois perspective, the work was one of the first plays on the continent dealing with the marginal classes as a reality to be dealt with politically. Wolff's Flores de 65

papel (1970) continued the same class conflict, terror and

threat in an absurdist format. Sergio Vodanovic addressed

social and political corruption in Chile in Deja que los

perros ladren (1959), Las exiliadas (1964), Perd6n . . .

jestamos en guerral (1966), and Nos Tomamos la universidad

(1970), of which Las exiliadas and Perd6n . . . also dealt with the "invasion" of the marginal sectors into the 95 bourgeois and ruling realms.

The theatre of the 1960s dealing with the marginal poor is indeed an impressive list in its relative length

and in the caliber of its contributors. Chilean dramatists predominate, beginning with Maria Asunci6n Requen's Pan

caliente back in 195 8, and including Elizalde Rojas' El pil6n (196 ), Jorge Diaz' El lugar donde mueren los mamlferos (1963) and Topografla de un desnudo (1967),

Egon Wolff's Los invasores (1967), Jose Pineda's Los marginados (1967) and Isidora Aguirre's Los papeleros

(1965). From Cuba came Jos£ Triana's El parque de la fraternidad (1962) and Hector Quintero's El premio flaco

(1965). Osvaldo Dragtan's Milagro en el mercado viejo

(Argentina, 1963), Enrique Buenaventura's La orgla

(Colombia, 1968) and El mend (1970), and RomSn Chalbaud's two works on the underworld, Sagrado y obsceno (Venezuela,

1961) and La quema de Judas (1964) are other noteworthy plays addressing the problems of this oppressed sector. 66

Political theatre of clear anti-imperialist criticism as the central focus marks the end of the 1960s and the be­ ginning of the 1970s. The most obvious works in this category include Isaac Chocr6n's Asia y el Lejano Oriente

(Venezuela, 1966), Jorge Diaz' Introduccidn al elefante y otras zoologias (Chile, 1968), Demetrio Aguilera Malta's

Infierno negro (Ecuador, 1970), Manuel Menendez Ballester's

La invasi6n (Puerto Rico, 1970), and Victor de los

Solares' Hoy, napalm hoy (Argentina, 1970).

Military oppression and torture have reached into the personal lives of many in the Latin American intellectual and artistic community, and they occur as thematic material for much political theatre in the 1960s. Jos£ Triana's El

Mayor General hablar^ de teogonia (Cuba, 1960) addressed the submissiveness of the Cuban people to "paternal" mili­ tary dictators, specifically to General Machado. The in­ terrogation scene of his La noche de los asesinos (1956) directly conveys the police-state inquisition process with­ in a psychological and nonmilitary work. Another outstand­ ing torture-interrogation scene occurs in the grotesque and black humor of the collective Argentina work El avi6n negro (1970). Osvaldo DragOn's Her6ica de Buenos Aires

(1966) and Y nos dijeron que gramos inmortales (1963) tangentally question the absurdity of military manoeuvers and training. Jorge Dias' Introduccidn al elefante y otras zoologias (1968) speaks to the passivity of Latin American 67 leftist sectors purportedly committed to ending repression and torture. In it, a tortured political victim's screams provide the background for a political satire of the polemic between Marxist collaborators. Enrique Buenaven­ tura's La trampa (Colombia, 1966) satirized the military dictatorship of General Ubico, actually an historical

Guatemalan figure, and was an important factor in the reor­ ganization of TEC as an independent theatre as described above. The climate of fear and threat of military and police political repression and torture provide the back­ drop of Maruxa Vilalta's Un pais feliz (Mexico, 1964) and

Esta noche juntos, am^ndonos tanto (1970) and for Virgilio

Pifiera's Dos viejos p^nicos (196 8). Argentina has produced works centrally critical of the military climate under the

Onganla regime: Rodolfo Walsh's La granada and La batalla

(1966), whose political ideas ultimately cost him his life, and Griselda Gambaro's El campo (1968). The collective

Argentina and Chilean work, El asesinato de X (1970) also deals directly with torture and repression. Gustavo

Andrade Rivera's El propio veredicto (1966) satirizes mili­ tary justice.

Much of the violence involved in repressive Latin

American regimes has been expressed in the theatre, and the

196 0s did not avoid the problem, as noted above, in the works dealing with the military. Matlas Montes-Huidobro 68

considers violence, especially fraticide, a major theme of 96 Cuban theatre, and Rom^n V. de la Campa discusses the ritualization of violence in his extensive study of the works of Cuban dramatist Jos£ Triana, noting its occurrence in La noche de los asesinos and La muerte del Neque 97 especially. Rite and violence appear m other works of political content, often expressed in the form of the grotesque and black humor. Enrique Buenaventura's El menG and Ricardo Monti's Una noche con el Sefior Magnus e hijos are cases in point. Virgilio Pifiera's absurdist Dos viejos pSnicos provides another Cuban example where games and the play-acting of the murder of each partner by the other are brutally ritualized as the meaning in their daily lives.

Colombian theatre in particular has dealt with violence as a reflection of decades of political assassinations, ban­ ditry and contests between liberals and conservatives, azules or rojos:

La violencia que preocupa a los jovenes drama- turgos, la que dinamiza su rebeldia, es la violencia organizada de las oligarqulas, que se traduce en el mantenimiento de estructuras injustas, en el hacinamiento cada vez major de gentes del campo en los nticleos urbanos, en la creciente alienacidn econdmica e ideoldgica de la burguesla y la clase media tipica, que in- tentan, desesperadamente, sostener las tradi- ciones que podrlan justificar la detenci6n de los cambios que se i m p o n e n . 9 8

Su&rez Radillo also notes the historically significant role the Catholic Church has played in Colombia. ‘Though often aligned with the forces of the status quo, this role was challenged internally by the Christian revolution move­

ment of Camilo Torres, and his ideas were supported by many 99 young playwrights of the 1960s. Gustavo Andrade Rivera's

Remington 22 (1961) speaks to political partisanship and

collective violence; Enrique Buenaventura's La tragedia

del rey Christophe (1963) captures the process leading to

national independence predicated on unified political par­

ticipation within the revolutionary process to guarantee maintenance of freedom and that independence.^*^ Carlos

Jos6 Reyes' Bandidos (1962) and Soldados (1967) treat con­

scious and unconscious violence institutionalized in local

authorities and in the military. Jairo Anibal Nino, direc­

tor of university theatre at Medellin, won first prize in

the University of Colombia's Second National Theatre

Festival in 1969 with his farse El golpe de estado which openly condemns the roles of the military and Catholic

Church in Colombian politics and satirizes the climate of . . 101 violence.

Whereas plays of political allusions, reference and descriptions are numerous during the 1960s, commitment to political ideology through theatre emerged among certain playwrights mainly toward the end of the decade and fre­ quently represented the culmination of a personal search

for dramatic and theatrical structures in consonance with a commitment to make theatre an active, consciousness- raising experience between dramatist, actor and audience 70

in relation to their contemporary historical moment and

situation. The process of increasing politicization and

commitment can clearly be seen in the dramatic evolution

of such established playwrights as Cesar Rengifo and Isaac

Chocr6n (Venezuela) , Osvaldo Dragtin (Argentina) , Alejandro

Sieveking, Isidora Aguirre, and Jorge Diaz (Chile),

Enrique Buenaventura (Colombia), and Manuel Galich (Guate­

mala) , to cite the most obvious examples. The younger

generations of playwrights first producing in the 1960s and

early 1970s have often begun their dramatic productions

directly with politically charged plays: Carlos Jos6 Reyes

in Colombia, Bandidos (1962), Orbe et Urbi (196 ) and

Soldados (1971); in Argentina, Rodolfo Walsh and Ricardo

Monti, both already mentioned above, and Victor de los

Solares, Hoy, napalm hoy (1970) and Guillermo Gentile,

Hablemos al calzon quitado (1970); Nicolas Dorr in Cuba,

La esquina de los concejales (1962) and El agitado pleito

entre un autor y un cingel (1973); Rodolfo Santana Salas in

Venezuela, La muerte de Alfredo Gris (1964) and El sitio

(1967); Leonel Mendez D&vila in Guatemala, Los desapare-

cidos (1971); Elizalde Rojas in Chile, mentioned above,

are but a few examples.

Collaboration among established authors had begun as

early as 1959 when Chilean dramatist Isidora Aguirre and novelist Manuel Rojas jointly wrote Poblaci6n esperanza about the marginal classes. In Venezuela, Jos§ Ignacio Cabrujas and RomSn Chalbaud collaborated on Dias de poder

in 1967 dealing with revolutionary leaders who betray their

ideals and ideology once in power, a work some felt more a

justification of the behavior of certain so-called demo- 102 cratic leaders rather than their condemnation. Accord­

ing to Monasterios, the authors disavowed their work later, possibly because of its ambiguity. Isaac Chocr6n joined

Chalbaud and Cabrujas to write Tri^ngulo, also in 1967.

Four Argentine playwrights, Roberto Cossa, German Rosen- macher, Carlos Somigliana, and Ricardo Talesnik, produced

El avi6n negro in 1970 about reactions to the possible

return of Juan Per6n to Argentina (See Chapter IV below).

This collaborative effort was clearly politically prescient, so accurate was its measure of the political

climate among varying sectors of Argentine society that

characterized the actual return of the leader in 1973. The

1969 Cordobazo student and worker strikes and uprisings that spread from Cordoba throughout Argentina gave rise to

a collective political work, El asesinato de X , in 1970, by a group of University of C6rdoba students who formed

Libre Teatro Libre. By 1969, ICTUS and ALEPH were produc­

ing collective theatre in Chile; Cuestionemos la cuesti6n 103 is one example of ICTUS' work in this direction.

Augusto Boal and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri wrote Zumbi in

1965, produced by their famed politically-oriented theatre

ARENA in Sao Paulo, Brazil. 72

The Consejo Nacional de Cultura in Cuba sent a group

of actors and directors to Escambray in 196 8. They formed

El Grupo Teatro Escambray dedicated to theatre that would

be a "creaci6n colectiva para una communicaci6n colec- 104 tiva." Sergio Corriera, its director, summed up the

goals of the group's revolutionary concept of a theatre

predicated on political ideology:

El Grupo Teatro Escambray decidi6 ir a buscar un nuevo ptiblico y, con 61, un lenguaje teatral que expresara de forma efectiva la problemStica de ese ptablico. Sus componentes insistlan en que el teatro no debia ser un fin en si mismo, no solamente el productor temporal de un goce est6tico; el teatro debia ser un hecho vivo, un instrumento de discusidn y confrontacidn colec- tivas de los problemas vitales del pCiblico a quien iba dirigido.lO^

In Chile, Colombia and Venezuela similar revolution­

ary collective-oriented drama grew up in the late 1960s and

early 1970s. In 1971, the Central tfnica de Trabajadores

(CUT) began a pilot group called Teatro Nuevo Popular com­

prised initially of graduates from the University of Chile

theatre DETUCH and also dedicated to the principle of

theatre characterized by "las formas y contenidos populares,

didcictico y de agitaci6n para promover los conjuntos de

trabajadores" and directed to the needs and interests of 106 the working classes. Like the Cuban theatre, the new direction of the Chilean theatre such as TNP under

Allende's Unidad Popular moved into union halls, villages,

and campesino communities, 73

en esos 6mbitos que constituyen los entornos habituales de su vida, y no en otros ~ I I cTonde este nuevo teatro haga su aprarici6n. Porque esta vez lo que se busca no es que el pueblo "vaya al teatro," condescendencia paternalista en la que tan graciosamente se incurriera en otras 6pocas; lo que se busca es que el teatro se vea, m6s atan, se haga donde el pueblo estci. Con 61 y por 61.

TEC in Colombia, once it became independent, became

completely political and revolutionary. Its themes dealt

with colonialism and dependence as fundamental to the

Colombian and Latin American situations; its repertoire was

increasingly devoted to collectively written, produced and

acted works; its productions became devoid of technical and

scenic elaboration; and its direction was toward the 10 8 masses. In 1968 and 1969, Carlos Miguel Suarez Radillo

organized the Teatro de los Barrios project in Caracas

backed by national and municipal organizations and de­

signed to draw marginal sectors into active participation

in the national culture: "el acercamiento de la cultura al 10 9 pueblo como motor y creador fundamental de la misma."

The project folded when support was withdrawn by its backers

at the point when the people were to create their own . 110 plays.

The early 1960s had seen university and independent

theatres institute reforms in their repertoires with in­

creasing emphasis on national and Latin American works and

on their concept of theatre as a consciousness raising and 74 agitational medium. The beginning of national drama festi­ vals coincided with these directions. Gradual reform in dramatic content could be seen in themes of proletariat con­ cern and in the treatment of the marginal and unemployed urban poor where protagonist focus moved from individual to collective problems and conflicts. Such works were still largely written by leftist intellectual, university-educated and bourgeois-raised playwrights who were becoming more and more committed to proletariat causes and the need for national changes in political structures and in the systems of justice. Dramatic structures began to change in con­ sonance with their agitational intent vis i vis bourgeois and intellectual audiences and with the growing appeal to nontraditional audiences. Social realism gave way under

Brechtian techniques which allowed structural flexibility to cover multiple cross-influencing sectors within one play. Such works incorporated Brechtian techniques in varying degrees into hybrid works of the grotesque and cruel where games and ritual, black humor, the absurd, satire and farse reflected the playwrights' evaluation of their government structures as politically, socially and economically distorted, imbalanced and grotesque. A con- commitant trend to neo-realism was evidence in histori­ cally-oriented dramatic works which used Brechtian tech­ niques to develop epic and documentary theatre. 75

With the experience of failure by democratic reform

governments in the mid-1960s, and the subsequent increase

of military or military-backed regimes relying frequently

on repressive measures for the maintenance of civil order

and internal economic stability, political criticisms be­

came more frequent, overt and strident in theatre. Reform­

ist directions became more radical, evolving to revolution­

ary stances both in the concepts of drama, now by and for

the people, and in the theatre's structures and content.

Institutions equally reflected such radicalization and politicization as the ideology of revolution appeared to many writers as the only viable alternative to overcome the injustices of economic dependence, imperialism and disequilibrium. Therefore, the movement of university and

independent theatres toward mass-based audiences, the rise of traveling and regional theatre groups aimed at popular theatre of, for and by the masses, and the concept of col­ lectively written theatre by actors and audience were the major structural revolutionary directions of the late 1960s.

Theatre became recognized as a didactic and dynamic vehicle that could raise political awareness and agitate for change. The four following chapters provide an in-depth study of four different approaches to political theatre in the 1960s that reflect the varying degrees of commitment by their authors to political change in Spanish America as seen in both the structures and contents selected. These 76 chapters offer examples of Brechtian epic theatre of revo­ lutionary intent; Greek classical theatre reworked for allegorical and descriptive analogy with the present; con­ temporary satire involving Brechtian techniques for de­ scriptive purposes but without agitational intent; and a collective work combining farce, black humor, the grotesque, and Brechtian elements for didactic and shock effects. CHAPTER I

MEXICO

The tradition of Mexican political theatre reaches back before the Mexican Revolution and has enjoyed a long-lived existence as a paralleling reflection of the Revolution's on-going process. Its earliers expression may be seen in the political reviews which were highly popular since the turn of the century. These usually were satiric sketches, scenes, or plays frequently based on a central political character or theme and often incorporating recent political events or the obscene or promiscuous through improvisation to attract audiences and to avoid censorship.'*' These re­ views were likely to attack directly or praise actual political figures of the day, such as Francisco Madero,

Porfirio Diaz, Venustiano Carranza, Alvaro 0breg6n, and

Ldzaro CSrdenas. Others condemned civil war and Yankee imperialism or criticized the excesses of capitalism, syn­ dicalism, political corruption and instability, and lack of social progress. Presidential election years provided especially fine targets for the authors of this "teatro 2 frivolo." Well known writers of political reviews and dramas included Carlos Ortega, Pablo Prida, Francisco 77 78

Benitez, Juan Bustillo Oro, Mauricio Magdaleno, Juan D. del

Morel, and Josfe VSzquez Mendez.

Whereas early reviews were written around unifying

political themes or figures reflective of their times,

later reviews treated political events and ideas less

directly and tended to insert them amid musical numbers and

unrelated slapstick sketches with no other intent than that 3 of provoking laughter.

El que la revista se niegue a morir y se restablezca periodicamente, gracias a cier- tos estlmulos, no es suficiente para garanti- zar al teatro frivolo una larga y saludable existencia. Las revistas completas con un s61o tema son ahora cosa del pasado, y se puede decir . . . que este genero en Mexico, en lo que respecta a su aspecto literario, ha regresado a sus fuentes originales, o sea el juguete cdmico o sketch hu- moristico alternado con mtisica, bailes y varieda- des en general.4

According to John B. Nomland, television and cinema have

contributed to the demise of the traditional stereotyped

political review.

As a result of the Mexican Revolution, the first quarter century of Mexican theatre saw the urban and rural proletariats become dramatic protagonists, an achievement

generally realized much later in most South American drama,

long devoted to the interests of the bourgeoisie. Nom-

land's study of Mexican theatre from 1900 to 1950 devotes

two separate sections to political theatre of the Revolu­

tion, and despite the imposing number of documented 79

political works written prior to 1925, he states that until

1925, the

Revolucion influy6 poco en el teatro, aunque algunos autores escribieron sus obras como un medio de propaganda para las nuevas ideas. Se discutla ocasionalmente en la escena a la Re­ vo luci6n, pero lo frecuente era la exposici6n de ideas para un mejoramiento s o c i a l . 6

The early theatre Nomland discusses treats themes of violence, excesses, violations and seductions committed by

the terratenientes against the campesinos, unequal justice,

reform needs, anti-clericalism and exploitation of urban

labor. He considers Revolutionary theatre since 1925 pri­ marily Marxist in orientation with works treating the mid­ dle class to expound the urban and proletariat cause from 7 an "absolute leftist" perspective. Even so, this later theatre continued the traditional metaphor inherited from earlier political and social protest dramas of the seduc­ tion of the lower-class daughter or wife by the upper-class boss.

In 19 30, Irwin Piscator's theories were published in

El teatro politico in Mexico and were translated into the basic direction of the Teatro de Ahora, founded in 1932 by

Mauricio Magdaleno and Juan Bustillo Oro. This theatre incorporated many of the experimental techniques borrowed from European and North American theatre which were evi­ denced in the Teatros de Ulises and Orientaci6n founded in

1928 and 1932 respectively.® Both these last two 80 theatres were responsible for translating and producing foreign works and provided a much needed stage for national dramatists such as Salvador Novo, Xavier Villarrutia, and

Celestino Gorostiza, most of whom later participated in the

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) founded in 194 7 and in the theatre of the Universidad de Mexico. The political orientation of Teatro de Ahora was not continued until the 1960s with the formation of a University affili­ ated group called Casa del Lago. Casa del Lago's theatre and concert programs undertook, among other goals, to pro­ mote sociopolitical theatre, the direction of which fell to

Hector Mendoza whose productions seem to have been primarily foreign political plays, such as Brecht's Good Woman of q Szechuan, presented to a wide range of audiences.

The Mexican political system has been the focus of realistic drama critical of its early violence and continu­ ing corruption since the days of the political reviews and the later works of Magdaleno and Bustillo Oro in the 19 30s.

Within this realistic tradition, Rodolfo Usigli's El gesticulador, first performed in 1947, attacked the betrayal of the Revolution's ideals and reforms sacrificed to rhetor­ ical images, corruption, violence, private interests and individual hypocrisy. Usigli's work marks the first modern political drama focusing on the creation and myth of the political hero. Students of Usigli writing contemporary sociopolitical works are Emilio Carballido and Luisa 81

Josefina Hernandez, both of whom have adapted Brechtian

epic theatre techniques to commentaries on the contemporary

Mexican political scene. Brechtian epic theatre was first

performed in Latin America in Mexico in 195 3.

The indigenous rural workers and the historical Revolu­

tionary hero have been the focus of the majority of Mexico's

contemporary sociopolitical theatre. Early works on the peasant sectors include Federico S. InclSn's Espaldas-mojas

(1951) dealing with the wetbacks, Humberto Robles Arenas'

Los desarraigadas (1956) underscoring the plight of border

Mexicans, followed in the 1960s by HernSndez' La paz

ficticia (1960), Esc^ndalo en Puerto Santo (1962) and His-

roria de un anillo (1967), all strongly didactic and

focused on the political consequences of a social system in which unequal distribution of national wealth and opportuni­ ties pertain.

Historical figures from the early Revolutionary period have served as political metaphors for contemporary politi­ cal regimes in dramas such as Wilberto Cant6n's Nosotros somos Dios (1962) referring to Huerta's years, Jorge

Ibarguengoitia's Brechtian influenced play about Alvaro

0breg6n entitled El atentado (1966), Elena Garro's Felipe

Angeles (1968), and Emilio Carballido's El almanaque de

Jfiarez (1972). In 1970, Vicente Leftero's Compafiero dealt with the contemporary revolutionary figure, in this case,

Che Guevara. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the 82 emergence of Mexican documentary theatre with Leftero's El juicio (1971) and Pilar Retes' La noche de Tlateloloco about the 1968 student protests and killings in Mexico City.

Other contemporary works addressing contemporary Mexican political injustices, demagoguery and commitment in general include Emilio Carballido's political allegory Medusa

(1958); his Brechtian Un pequefio dia de ira (1962) and iSilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maiz!

(1963), the latter a modern political parable and satire;

Antonio Magafia Esquivel's El sitio y la hora (1961);

Maruxa Vilalta's Un pais feliz (1964); and Pilar Retes'

Octubre termind hace tiempo (1969).

The Mexican Revolution had done little toward the encouragement of national theatre until 1962, when the In- stituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) undertook the construction and management of workers' theatres, which by

196 9 had reached into poor neighborhoods, some achieving full professional status.^ Prior to 1962, other major government support was through INBA, which since its found­ ing in 1946 has allocated its support and theatre to all the performing arts, thus limiting the theatre run of any given dramatic work.11 INBA was and is responsible for establishing and encouraging national drama festivals, a highly successful children's theatre, and a reputable school for actors. Additionally, the Universidad de Mexico 83

has provided impetus for national and international dramatic

productions since 1935.

All theatre ticket prices are kept at minimal rates by

law for both private and state supported productions, which

encourages disadvantaged sector attendance but severely

limits theatre growth and adequate renumeration for drama- 12 tists, actors, directors and stagehands. Hence, theatre has suffered from what dramatist and theatre critic Salvador

Novo considers a well-meaning "paternal" government policy that in practice maintains theatre in a state of underde- 13 velopment. Both the paternal government attitude and the state of theatrical underdevelopment cited by Novo are the targets of Carballido's political satire ISilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maiz!, which is the subject of this chapter.

Emilio Carballido has had a long and successful career as one of Mexico's leading contemporary dramatists, produc­ ing plays of great diversity ranging from fantasy to 14 adaptations of Greek classics to socially didactic theater.

Eugene Skinner notes that since La hebra de oro (1953) , which first joined within the same work Carballido's dual interests of imaginative and realistic theater,

Carballidos's plays have generally depicted a struggle for liberation of vital creative forces, and the form employed has been the comedy or farse. In his earlier works the disruptive force was associated with an exaggeration of ego and with traditional mores, represented by specific 84

individuals within the context of the family. In his later works, this force becomes an institution or society in general.

In two of his most obviously didactic works, Un

pequefio dia de ira (1962) and iSilencio, polios pelones,

ya les van a echar su maizl (1963) , the disruptive force

involves political institutions. In both cases Carballido

focuses on political and social processes. In iSilencio,

polios pelones. . . he relies on a traditional frame story

structure and, as in Un pequefio dia de ira, on Brechtian

dramatic techniques. The latter allow him to develop en­

compassing views of the many facets that feed into those processes through a series of scenes independent in their own right but interdependent within the overall comment he makes. Whereas in Un pequefio dia de ira the emphasis is on provincial political decision-making and the allocation of

justice by traditional nondemocratic governing elites, in

iSilencio, polios pelones. . . the emphasis is on the Mexican government bureaucracy which chooses to institutionalize charity rather than address the causes of poverty among its marginal sectors. In the first play the critical comment has a universal application to many Latin American coun­ tries in which traditional colonial dependency structures form obstacles to the emergence of a democratic voice and to the achievement of equal justice. Although in the lat­ ter case the critical comment also has a universal applica­ tion, it makes a more directly national reference, the 85

Mexican Revolution specifically. Both plays are socially

and politically didactic, both deal with processes, and

both are basically descriptive rather than prescriptive.

However, in iSilencio, polios pelones. . ., it is the more

direct reference to the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican

situation which makes the play of interest in this investi­ gation. Eugene Skinner has stated that

Although political and economic realities are treated, the main object of satire is the in­ stitutionalization of charity in the Social Welfare Agency. Charity, while apparently ad­ ministering to the needs of the poor, has only a cosmetic effect. It leaves unexplored the causes of poverty and serves to perpetuate the existing system that is based on a dominant- subordinate relationship.16

Although most of Skinner's points are accurate and well-taken, his initial comment about the satiric focus of the play is somewhat misleading. Once charity becomes

"institutionalized" in a government it partakes of politics and political structures. I have said that Carballido pre­ sents the process of institutionalization; that process reflects political attitudes, and, as Skinner rightly says, in Mexico's case it is an attitude of dominance— specifically of paternalism— and subordination that char­ acterizes government response to poverty and marginality.

The immediate object of satire is the institutionalization of poverty. However, the main object of satire in the play is the political process and the political attitudes that inform it. Afterall, what is bureaucracy if not the 86 implementation structure which processes government re­ sponses to prevailing political attitudes?

I suggest that the structure of the play provides some evidence to support this analysis in its opening and clos­ ing criticism of the basic lack of national support of the arts in general and of theatre specifically. The play refers directly to the consequence of the lack of govern­ ment support in the creation of an "underdeveloped" sector of artists and dramatists and criticizes attitudes of paternalism and subordination that subject potential national audiences to elitist criteria of acceptable art and theatre. That this overtly critical framework ends the play with a specific call for the fulfillment of the

Mexican Revolution's 1917 Constitution— a political re­ quest— provides added force to the argument. The play framed by this critical perspective and comment describes the process of institutionalizing paternal-subordinate re­ lationships. Carballido points to deficient political struc tures which in practice do not fulfill the promise of the

Revolution.

As it is well-known, with the termination of its violent military stage by 1946, the Mexican Revolution has become institutionalized and claims to be an on-going process. Octavio Paz wrote in 1950, that the Revolution

. . . proposed to liquidate feudalism, transform the country by means of industry and technology, 87

put an end to our economic and political dependence, and establish a genuinely democratic society.17

The Mexican Revolution stands out because it is an on­ going process exhibiting no unified philosophical or ideological base and is rather a hybrid of ideologies 18 nourished from diverse pragmatic experience. One associ­ ates it generally with extreme or radical nationalism, anticlericalism, a leftist and radical agrarian and labor direction, industrialization, social reforms and a demo­ cratic civilian government committed to the principle of no re-election and the integration of indigenous populations 19 into the mainstream of national Mexican life. These directions have variously manifested themselves in such policies as the ejido-based land reforms of the 1930s, the separation of Church and State, the nationalization of the petroleum industry, and on adamant devotion to noninterven­ tion and self-determination that opposes United States' efforts for collective Latin American condemnation of the

Castro regime.

The evaluative measures one uses to study the Revolu­ tion's successes or failures could describe it as remark­ ably democratic or as entirely authoritarian, which Martin 20 Needier has pointed out. In relation to other developing countries, Needier considers the following its accomplish­ ments: the one-party political system whose stability rests on its inclusive nature, the toleration of opposition 88

(albeit somewhat limited), the low record of political im­ prisonment and deaths, the overwhelmingly civilian bureauc­ racy and government, the modest military expenditures and low military profile, the support from labor and business, the land reforms, and the combination of independent yet 21 close ties with the United States. On the other hand, the

Revolution has been less strong in diversifying and distrib­ uting the economy, transforming society and in promoting 22 democracy. Well-known critic of the Revolution, Pablo

Gonzdlez Casanova, has specified these short-comings: con­ tinued high mortality rates, illiteracy, malnutrition, high percentages of workers depending on agriculture at a sub­ sistence level, high numbers of nonorganized workers, high nonvoting populations, unequal income distribution (66 per­ cent of national income received by 1 percent of the working population), and lack of social and political integration of large indigenous sectors of the population leading to a pluralist society in which large marginal sectors are sub- 23 ject to internal colonialism. He further notes that

Mexico enjoys relative economic growth (6 percent annual growth of the GNP) but that "development” is uneven due to political structures which have been unresponsive to democratization.^

The much touted political stability of Mexico since the Revolution is frequently attributed to its one-party system. The 1917 Mexican Constitution permits and states 89 its encouragement of opposition parties, but in practice opposition forces have been historically negligible until the last decade. The Partido Revolucionario Institucional

(PRI) is the official government party which routinely elects the President, Governors, and almost all Congres­ sional Senators and Deputies from within its ranks. Its formal structure consists of labor, peasant and popular

(largely middle-class professional) sectors. The Presidency has been alternated traditionally between conservative and liberal elements within the party. The lines between PRI and the Mexican government are blurred. Because PRI is accommodationist, always giving possible political opposi­ tion a chance for its place in the sun within the party, and because the PRI's broad umbrella-like structure across class, cultural, and economic lines, there has always been the hope for "absorcion permanente de los dirigentes cam- pesinos y obreros a la direccidn politics de la burguesia" 25 in Mexico. The no re-election rule applying to the Presi­ dency and major offices allows for continual entry of new and young participants into the system and promotes upward mobility but also conformity and co-optation.

Roger D. Hansen cites three separate studies concern­ ing the politically ambivalent Mexicans who, despite their strong support of the Revolution and its political institu­ tions since the 1930s, are cynical about their present system and hence expect little from the government and 90 26 thereby shun political activity. In the 1964 Presidential elections approximately 50 percent of those who could vote 27 did not. It has been noted that the functions and ser­ vices performed by PRI are also performed by other institu­ tions such as labor and peasant organizations or by govern­ ment agencies and the bureaucracy. Hence, the effectiveness of placing demands on the system through PRI becomes ques­ tionable. Additionally, the Congress into which PRI feeds candidates lacks real authority, consistently rubber- 28 stamping programs handed down from the Executive.

Two schools of thought exist regarding the role of PRI in the Mexican political system. One considers PRI as the focal point of the political process. The other sees it as merely an effective tool of control and legitimacy manipu­ lated by a small governing elite group variously called the

"Coalici6n Revolucionaria" of the "Familia Revolucionaria" 29 and headed by the President. Based on analysis of economic policies and on the fact that those groups bene­ fiting most from economic growth are not formally repre­ sented in PRI, Roger Hansen has concluded that the second description clearly holds:

En vista de las pruebas que ofrecen tanto la es- tructura como los efectos que sobre el bienestar ha tenido la estrategia para el desarrollo de Me­ xico, asl como las relaciones existentes entre las Elites econ6mica y politics de Mexico, es dificil pensar en el partido oficial como una institucion que realmente representa y equilibra los intereses 91

de sus tres sectores, dentro del proceso politico mexicano.30

For example, business organizations such as the Confedera- ci6n de CcLmaras Industriales (CONCAMIN), the Confederaci6n de Ccimaras Nacionales de Comercio (CONCANACO) and the

C&mara Nacional de la Industria de Transformaci6n (CNIT) are held to have a disproportionate and more effective in­ fluence on high government circles and their policies than 31 the party does.

In recent years, especially after the 196 8 Olympic

Game riots when hundreds of students were jailed after military and civilian forces fired on demonstrators and killed at least 50 persons, PRI and the Coalici6n

Revolucionaria have come under severe criticism as income distribution grows more uneven, the agricultural reform program lags, increasing numbers of technically and pro­ fessionally trained young find no vehicle for effective political voice, and the marginal indigenous populations grow in absolute numbers.

Outside major urban areas, PRI organization is loose and at times nonexistent, its impact conveyed primarily through personalist ties between representatives and people. The Party distributes patronage from the top down, major authority passing directly from the President, whose power derives greatly from patronage, especially the choos­ ing of most Congressmen. Viable party opposition occurs only on the local level so that the only "check" on 92

Presidential and Congressional authority occurs in the no re-election rule. In this sense PRI's structure is hori­ zontal in composition and vertical in authority, such that the Party is subservient to its elected government officials.

The Partido de Accidn Nacional (PAN) is the main con­ servative opposition party to PRI. Formed in 1939 during the presidency of L&zaro CSrdenas, this counter-Revolutionary party garners support from Catholic peasant and business sectors and is run by the latter. It manages to win some local municipal offices and a few seats in the national

Ccimara de Diputados. PAN opposes the centrist character of

Mexican political, social and economic structures and state intervention in these areas and advocates a liberal capitalist democracy.32

On the opposite end of the political spectrum is the leftist Partido Popular Socialista (PPS) , founded in 1948 as the Partido Popular (PP) by Marxist labor organizer

Vicente Lombardo Toledano of the Confederaci6n de Traba­ jadores Mexicanos (CTM). The PPS opposes extensive foreign economic investment and imperialism in Mexico and advocates the nationalization of natural resources and a socialist state. The declared party of the proletariat and the exploited Mexican classes, PPS allied itself openly with 33 Soviet Leninist doctrines in 1960. It has been adamantly opposed by the Partido Communista Mexicano (PCM), the latter founded in 1919 and excluded by Federal electoral law 93

from legal registration and hence electoral participation.

The PCM has suffered, as has the PPS, from internal disor­ ganization and dissension throughout its history. Its programs call for economic and political independence from

the United States, democratization of Mexico's political structures and the eventual dictatorship of the proletariat 34 of a socialist Communist state. None of these parties has made any significant showing at the polls, even on a local level.

In the early 1960s, when Emilio Carballido wrote

ISilencio, polios pelones . . ., Mexico was under the leadership of Adolfo L6pez Mateos (1958-1964), one of its most liberal presidents since the days of the LSzaro

Cardenas presidency (1934-1940). L6pez Mateos' efforts went into reform and development of rural sectors and into an increased Mexican international role, both politically and economically. His administration spanned both the 1959

Cuban Revolution and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, during which time Mexico recognized the Castro government but backed the Organization of American States' resolution call­ ing for withdrawal of Soviet arms and missiles from Cuba.

Mexico abstained from most OAS or western hemisphere resolutions condeming the Cuban Revolution (such as exclud­ ing the Castro regime from OAS or from participation in the

Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), or withdraw­ ing recognition) and maintained a strict policy of 94 35 nonintervention and self-determination. L6pez Mateos sought a leadership role for Mexico in the OAS and LAFTA and undertook several trips abroad to improve diplomatic relations with both East and West in order to open the way for economic accords that would help finance a major Mexican industrial drive.

L6pez Mateos was successful in obtaining major agri­ cultural loans from the United States and in reaching accords over solution to the salinity problems ruining

Mexican crops caused by the United States' control pro­ cedures on the Colorado River. He also reached favorable settlement of the border disputes in the Chamizal region over El Paso land boundaries. He managed to distribute 24 million acres over a three-year period in adherence to one of the major projects of the Revolution, but after 1962 his agricultural reform program suffered from implementation 36 slowdowns. Despite his nomination as the PRI presiden­ tial candiate by Lclzarao Ccirdenas, during his presidency

L6pez Mateos met significant opposition from the former

President because of his agrarian reform program. During the 1930s, Cardenas had been responsible for the national­ ization of the Mexican oil industry and railroads and championed rural and marginal sectors in developing the ejido program of communal farming that broke up many of

Mexico's large estates. CSrdenas formed the Central

Campesina Independiente (CCI) to pressure the government 95

into expropriating foreign holdings. The organization was

said to be responsible for the 1963 invasion of private

lands by peasants in northern Mexico. Federal forces inter- 37 vened to evict the squatters.

Major strikes and riots during the L6pez Mateos regime

included the general strike of San Luis Potosl in 1959 that

attempted to break local caudillo power and led to a mas­

sive write-in campaign in the mayoral elections; the nation­ wide railroad strike, also in 1959, in which Soviet attaches were accused of involvement; the 1960 communist-led student riot provoked over the ouster of a leftist teachers union

leader; the 1960 demonstrations protesting the corruption of the state Governor of Guerrero; and the 1961 political- 38 military movement in Pueblo and Veracruz states. There are several indirect references to government desire to suppress leftist and Marxist groups in Carballido's play reflecting this Mexican climate of the 1960s.

Agrarian and leftist unrest in Mexico, especially from 1959 to 1963, reflected the influence of the Cuban

Revolution on its Latin American neighbors' marginal popu­ lations and radical political elements. In the case of

Mexico, there was a natural empathy between the 26th of

July Movement and the goals of the Mexican Revolution. This bond was weakened by the 1962 Soviet military presence in

Cuba when the L6pez Mateos administration ultimately came down heavily on the side of reform as opposed to revolution. 96 This opposition was manifested in Mexico's strong roles in

OAS and in LAFTA, and in L<5pez Mateos' far-reaching land redistribution proposals in 1962.

Emilio Carballido's farse jSilencio, polios pelones . . . satirizes the Mexican government bureaucracy and focuses on the plight of the marginal rural sectors. By implication it criticizes the unfulfilled promises of the Mexican Revo­ lution. To accomplish this Carballido develops a dual structure that focuses on the marginal or subordinate sec­ tors on the one hand and on the dominant paternal governing sectors on the other. He skillfully juxtaposes these two sets of protagonists and then intertwines their conflicts to emphasize national inabilities to clarify problems and to confront them with practical solutions that speak to causes and not to symptoms.

Careful attention is paid to structural balance throughout the play, which follows a symmetrical and circu­ lar pattern. Carballido begins by framing his play within a satire of Mexican theater, beginning and ending the farce with the eight actors playing themselves and commenting on the drama they enact and their relationship to it. This framework is set within the historical present and sets off and encloses the play within the play. The framed play is comprised of a temporal sequence of present, past, and present. The five temporal planes (two dealing with the actors' historical present and three with the framed play) distinguish five major divisions of segments of the play and three situations. The situations include: the actors'

theatrical plight— two scenes of problems and constraints

dealing with the actual dramatic present of the production

at hand; the situation of the peasants through Porfirio's

story; and the government situation through Leonela's story. Hence there are three protagonist clusters: the actors, the peasants, and the government. Carballido main­ tains structural balance through the 18 major scenes of the play in allocating five basic scenes to each of the three central play segments, the remaining three dealing with the actors. If one includes the choral transitions in the scene count, the total increases to 36 separate units.

Two of a total of eight actors represent the chorus.

They play guitars and provide musical background throughout the play as well as lyrical commentary on the drama that unfolds. Their songs and direct addresses to the audience describe relevant off-stage action, elaborate on-stage action, and offer analyses and interpretations. Hence the chorus plays a triple role of narrator, commentator and interpreter and functions as a vehicle for direct comment from the playwright. The technique is typically Brechtian.

The remaining six actors assume a host of different roles,

21 in all, largely due, as the actors state from the out­ set, to economic constraints prohibiting a larger cast.

The continuous scene and character changes create a rapid 98

rhythm which provides the play with flow and external con­

tinuity.

The sparse and suggestive scenery and costuming are

also attributed to economic constraints. Carballido relies

on maps, photographs and posters to convey geographic and

temporal settings, to provide background documentary infor­ mation, and to promote critical distance between audience

and play content. The framing of the play within the

actors' actual situation, the use of interruptive yet com­ plementing songs throughout the play, direct address to the

audience from the chorus and actors, humor, and the rapid

and frequently changing scenes, already mentioned, also pro­ mote dramatic distance. In addition to choral transitions between scenes there is a continuous use of lighting to mark changes. All set and costume changes are effected in full sight of the audience by the eight actors.

The opening lines are sung and, in a style and form reminiscent of the Golden Age loa, beg the audience's indulgence by calling attention to the players' honorable intentions despite their apparent poverty. There ensues an argument over the roles of playwright and public which pokes fun at the former as a "Dios Creador" who recreates life

"en toda su verdad" beyond the bounds of time and space.

Humorously Carballido raises the classical question and conflict between reality and illusion at the heart of artistic creation and subtly alerts the audience to the 99 questionable veracity of the play to follow. The barrage of documentation which introduces the following play deftly sets this doubt to rest and psychologically increases the credibility of the drama.

The public is humorously chided for its anti-patriotic preference for trendy, foreign dramas, such as those of

Sartre, Anouilh, D&rrenmatt, Frisch, Williams and Miller as opposed to those of national dramatists. One notes the balanced pairing of two names from each country, a tech­ nique typical of Carballido's masterly control of both internal and external structure. Lack of public support causes economic restraints on the use of technical effects, a larger cast and elaborate staging and scenery.

iQui§n va a gastar ese dineral en la obrita de un paisano? Le mera verdad: con las piezas mexicanas no se gana nada. iNo viene el pdblicol Bueno; vinieron ustedes, un publico selecto, pero. . . (Tose, meti6 la pata.)39

The actors complain of lack of official support, union co­ operation, and the critics' unresponsiveness, all of which result in the "underdevelopment" of Mexican writers. Thus

Carballido satirically introduces and displaces the concept of underdevelopment which is central to the drama the actors now grumbling prepare to perform. The two who com­ prise the chorus mark the criticism and provide the transi­ tion to that drama which, in the final analysis, deals with responsibilities charged by the Revolution's Constitution 100 to those who govern:

Subdesarrollo: admiro el pudor de ese neologismo. Como si la culpa fuese de nadie. dSer& del clima? lO de los recursos del suelo? iQui§n sabe! En to- do caso. . . cPara qu6 vamos a buscar responsables entre los hombres? (109)

The chorus describes the setting of the drama as an agriculturally fertile, industrially productive, oil-rich,

Mexican coastal village and vaguely indicates the region of

Veracruz on a large map. Moving from the exterior signs of man's productive harnessing of his natural environment, the chorus lyrically describes the natural environment it­ self, emphasizing the tropical flora and fauna and painting an aromatic paradise. There follows a rapid-fire statement of regional statistics on population, housing, mortality, acreage, hospitals, airports, radio stations, banks, and income, punctuated visibly by a series of posters with the respective statistics. The chorus interjects interpreta­ tive comments and asides to the audience for satirical effect. For example, of 24 radio stations, only one is purely cultural and that is closed down for repairs. Fif­ teen different diseases are cited, from intestinal flu to occasional leprosy, but the chorus states tongue-in-cheek that the authorities are attempting to eradicate these.

Of course, the scope of the list and the fact that the date is in the 1960s convey the failures of the government and state not to have eradicated such basic debilitating fac­ tors on its rural populations long since. 101

The chorus states that 15 percent of the population is

Indian, which "muy pronto serS incorporado al vigoroso

ritmo de vida general" (110). Carballido here evokes

through the term "vigoroso" the common image of the Mexican

Indian as lethargic, apathetic, and lazy. Of course, it is the government which has been lethargic and lazy in ful­

filling the Revolution's commitment to integrate indigen­ ous peoples into the mainstream of national development and culture. Whereas relative to the total population the

Indian population has declined, in absolute figures it has not; by 1960, three million Indians still remained outside the national culture subject to the internal colonialism of

el prejucio, la discriminaci6n, la explotaci6n de tipo colonial, las formas dictatoriales, el alineamiento de una poblacidn dominante con una raza y una cultura, y de otra poblaci6n— dominada — con raza y cultura distintas.40

The remainder of the chorus' informational background satirizes the use of statistics which tend to lose meaning for the lower ends of the scale to which they apply. Since approximately 4 8 percent of the population wears shoes, if people only had one leg, 96 percent could then wear shoes; if 60 percent of the producing population earns less than

$350 pesos monthly, then things will get better if one waits for further initiatives on the part of private, national and foreign interests. Pablo GonzSlez Casanova has pointed out that if $1000 pesos monthly constitute a modest standard of living, then for 1961-1962, only 20 102

percent of Mexican families enjoyed that level or better.

From 1950 to 196 3, the economically least well-off families

suffered a decline in real income, and in 1963, of the 4 3

percent of Mexican families receiving less than $600 pesos 42 monthly, two-thirds derived that income from agriculture.

In a note at the end of the play intended to be printed in

the theatre program, Carballido states that

Las cifras y referencias en la obra son tan exactas como las estadisticas oficiales de donde fueron to- madas. En ocasciones se han redondeado nOmeros de- masiado complejos o se han variado ligeramente algu- nos datos para que se apliquen a varios Estados de la Republics y no s6lo a Veracruz, el principal- mente aluido. (160)

A chorus member recites a fragment from "Bajo las

palmas" by Mexican Romantic poet Manuel M. Flores which

idealizes a luxurious natural setting, lush and fragrant, while the cast sets up a miserable shack, sparsely and poorly furnished, and dons identifying peasant attire. The

contrast of statistics and poetic words with the setting of poverty and ugliness that the cast improvizes scenically visually conveys Carballido's satire. The actors verbally

continue the satire by alternating between the refined

euphemistic description that minimizes poverty and the direct vulgar that exaggerates it. For example, "adequate"

economic resources are really "poverty"; scenery is

"modern" in its "suggestiveness" but really "only ade­ quate"; the setting is that of a "small town" but really a

"rancheria" or "settlement"; "houses" are "shacks," 103 depending on the perspective or intent of the viewer. Car­ ballido consciously seeks to question absolute language and absolute perceptions, always reminding the audience of life's complexity. He rarely presents just one perspective.

The "settlement" the actors discuss is located next to a railroad siding, and when occasionally cars are shunted onto it, the villagers line up to get free hot water. The trains usually pass the settlement, polluting the air, mak­ ing the huts shake, and causing food and water to taste of oil. The scene smoothly shifts to the family of Porfirio, whose wife, Domitila, scolds their daughter for eating earth.

Porfirio contemplates seeking work in the highlands of the interior where some North Americans have recently con­ structed a camp to buy local medicinal herbs harvested by the Mexican peasants. The Americans pay higher wages than the peasants can make in other occupations. Porfirio re­ jects the idea that his pregnant wife, Domitila, and ailing mother, dofia Nieves, accompany him to the camp due to the dangers of crossing the river and the wild animals. To prevent complications from the pregnancy, Domitila has put on a red petticoat and Nieves suggests she find a deer's eye. These native behaviors and superstitions are common to the indigenous population, and though Carballido does not indicate the racial identity of the protagonists in the play, such references to magical beliefs at least 104

suggest the Indian background of the peasants.

The scene transfers to the gringo camp where the

Americans are weighing sacks of medicinal leaves. One

campesino is caught filling his sack with rocks and sticks

to increase its weight. Others than discreetly extract

and discard similar weights to avoid being caught. The

gringo comments in English on the deceptiveness of the

Latin American people. The women who bring sacks uniformly

have harvested many times more than the males and are pre­

sented as reliable and honest by comparison. Carballido

here does not idealize the peasant sector he describes but

typically presents a double perspective, the honest and the

dishonest, as again witnessed when Porfirio arrives late to

harvest the plants and is loaned a sack from the same

peasant caught cheating, an act showing the good side of

that man. Porfirio had stopped first to water his corn plot, the size of which is scorned by his companion, but which Porfirio defends because it is, after all, his.

Porfirio learns there are two ways to cross the

treacherous river between the camp and the highlands where

the crop has to be harvested, either by the steel cable car

shunted across automatically and operated by the gringos or by swimming across diagonally with the current to a landing

spot before the waterfalls. In need of the better wages the foreigners can provide, Porfirio decides to cross by cable car until he learns that on the trip across not one 105

but several campesinos share the car. Despite the gringo

assurances of the car's safety, Porfirio decides to swim

and exits. Another campesino, Erasto, enters complaining

about the poisonous snakes encountered in the harvesting,

and he and the first campesino watch Porfirio unsuccess­

fully navigate the river. The chorus describes Porfirio's drowning through song, which is interrupted periodically by the two friends who shout advice, encouragement and warn­ ing to Porfirio from the bank and by the two gringos who scurry about for rope to save the drowning Mexican. The campesinos accept the fate of Porfirio stoically while the gringos become frantic. Once more dual perspectives and responses are developed.

The next scenes focus on Erasto, who anguishes over the death and the breaking of the news to Domitila and

Nieves, and on the family and community reactions to the tragedy. Domitila and Nieves are perceived directly by the audience and then described through a conversation be­ tween the neighbors who wonder what will become of the aged mother and the inexperienced and untrained wife. The women are left destitute without money for even funeral candles or coffee for the wake participants. It is learned that

Porfirio1s body has not been found despite strenuous efforts on the part of both Mexicans and Americans. The conversation is interrupted periodically, as are the fol­ lowing scenes, by Erasto's refrain: "Cuando se meti6 al 106

agua nos salud6 asi. Y ya en la cara se le vela como si

supiera lo que le iba a pasar." The effect is structurally

unifying and dramatically charged, heightening the separa­

tion of audience from the emotional tension of the tragedy

and maintaining the lyrical tone set by the chorus in

earlier descriptions and songs.

Brief scenes depict the search for the body and the

concern by Domitila and Nieves over paying for the wake.

The neighbors have brought over food, but what is available

in the highlands provides less than a subsistence. They

try to solve the family crisis, and one woman recalls gov­ ernment assistance given a woman whose mother fell criti­ cally ill while her husband was away working as a bracero in the United States. Medicines, hospital and funeral costs were paid by the "government," which, it transpires, was really the widow, dofia Leonela, who ran her own charity asylum for the impoverished and who was eventually ap­ pointed to a government position, such was her reputation for generosity and charity. The neighbors plan to seek aid for Domitila through Leonela's good offices. They raise the money among themselves to pay for the trip to the capital. Again, it is noted that it is the women who take positive action to solve their problems.

This possible solution ends the first major segment of the play presenting the problem confronted by the marginal agrarian sectors: food, water, land, seasonal unemployment, 107

adverse working conditions, and government channels of communication and assistance. The majority of the politi­ cal allusions is made by implication from described situations. For example, in the case of food and water, the peasants are affected negatively by "civilization" and

"development" in the symbolic passing by of the train of which only the undesirable by-products reach down to the poor. Additionally, if adequately fed, the poor would not be tempted to eat earth. Beset by inadequate land and irrigation, Porfirio spends considerable time and energy watering his corn, which provides insufficient subsistence, and thus he must seek supplemental income sources. The brief reference to Porfirio's land is an allusion to the ejido land distribution program instituted by L&zaro

Cardenas' government in the 1930s. There are several forms of land ownership in Mexico: private holdings over 5 hect&reas, private holdings under 5 hectSreas (minifundia), and the ejidos, which are those holdings distributed to collectives but which are then parceled out in lots to individual families to cultivate. These lots are not owned outright by the family but the latter has full rights of cultivation and inheritance but not of sale to such lands.

In 196 0, 77 percent of private owners controlled only 11 percent of privately owned land with an average of only 1.6 43 hect&reas per owner. Almost one million ejidatarios and another million manifundistas cultivated parcels that did 108 44 not provide subsistence for their families. Only a small

proportion of the minifundia boasted adequate water—

whether from rainfall or from irrigation— to provide for 45 family subsistence. In I960, 3.3 million rural workers

owned no land, and their rate of employment and income was

declining. Using Gonz&lez Casanova's ratings of rural marginality based on numbers of inhabitants not eating

bread made from wheat, milk, eggs or meat, who went unshod

and were illiterate, in 1960 the state of Veracruz was

ranked overall number one in numbers of inhabitants deprived 46 of these measures.

As part of the problem of the need for supplemental

income Carballido evokes the plight of the Mexican braceros

and wetbacks who cross United States' borders in search of

better wages. Mexico is still basically a raw materials provider to foreign markets: cotton, sugar, coffee, oil and minerals. Whereas in the late 1930s, minerals constituted

the largest export, by the 1960s export diversification placed agricultural products in that category, thereby sub­

jecting significant economic growth and capital accumula­

tion to climatic variables and fluctuations in world mar­ kets. Since 1940, up to 75 percent of Mexican exports have 4 7 depended on United States' markets. Foreign investments,

tourism and bracero wages help maintain foreign reserves 4 8 and offset an otherwise unfavorable balance of payments.

Economic dependency on the United States results partly 109

from its geographic proximity to Mexico and partly from the nature of the export goods Mexico has to offer on the in­ ternational market. Numbers of braceros entering the United

States declined by almost 45 percent between 1959 and 1962 49 due to economic and legal obstacles. Between 1942 and

1957, over 7 million wetbacks were caught and returned to

Mexico, and estimates of the actual numbers of wetbacks 50 entering undetected are m the millions.

The play's references to the dangers of crossing the river to the highlands symbolize those of crossing the Rio

Grande experienced by the Mexican wetbacks. Without benefit of international labor organization and protection, the braceros and wetbacks are subject to adverse working condi­ tions and exploitation. Carballido is fairly even-handed in his rapid references to these problems. Whereas he patently emphasizes the natural dangers involved, he does make it clear that the gringo wages are higher than those available within rural Mexico. Of course, in Porfirio's case the cost of obtaining those wages was death.

The management of the above problems symbolized in the suggestion by Domitila's neighbors introduces the main theme of the relationships between the government and the marginal population. The uncertain perception of lines between personality and position introduce the other main protagonists of the play and convey the lack of national political awareness and education. Weak political cognition is reflected in the fact that in the 1964 Mexican elections,

almost 50 percent of eligible voters did not exercise their

franchise and that 50 percent of the population lacked 51 access to direct national political information. Studies

by Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba show 66 percent and 67

percent of urban respondents questioned felt the national

and local Mexican governments respectively had no effect on 52 their daily lives. One can expect similar or higher per­ centages in the rural environment. Other studies have broken down the population into groups of localistas, who

expect nothing of the political system, either due to lack of information or distrust of government; subordinados, who are aware of the government and relate to it passively as recipients of its services; and participantes, who actively vote and/or seek to influence government and its services 53 through interest groups. Characteristics of the first group include "apathy, passivity, fatalism, resignation, . . 54 stoicism, distrust, and feelings of inferiority." Typical of this group are the Indians. Estimates are that two- thirds of the population fit into the subordinados group, or those who are "ambivalent" towards government, support­ ing the Revolution and political institutions but cynical 55 about Mexican politics and politicians in general.

Identification with the government "system" is usually through an intermediary figure: "There,is little sense of collective solidarity; rather individualism or Ill personalistic interactions between individuals predom­ inate."56 Gonz&lez Casanova categorizes the intermediary figure into two types: those within the government or government organizations espousing official ideology and those who independently operate as "amigos del gobierno" and are of moderate ideological persuasions, typically being priests, lawyers, physicians and teachers, and who assume a moral rather than political image among the popu- lace.i 57

Domitila's neighbors typify the subordinados. Their intermediary figure is dofia Leonela, who initially belongs to the second intermediary group but who passes into the first category upon official political appointment. The process of her transfer and its affects upon her self­ perceived role and upon her "constituents" becomes the focal point of the main body of the play.

The temporal structure of the play switches from the dramatic present of Porfirio and Domitila to the dramatic past of dofia Leonela one and a half years earlier. The transition is marked by the chorus who state the change directly to the audience and hold up a placard to indi­ cate the time, place and beginning of Leonela's story, which occurs in the state capital. The opening song describes her charity asylum, the Refugio Guadalupano, located in the urban slums where she receives the poor and administers to their needs. The actors change sets in the 112

meantime and various photographs of southern Mexican

capitals are hung on the walls. The main stage area de­

picts an office with a large statue of the Virgin of

Guadalupe in a prominent place. Leonela and her secretary,

Clementina, are praying before receiving the poor. The

nun-like secretary screens the waiting indigents before

they see Leonela. Leonela demonstrates gentleness and

humility as well as good sense. She telephones a doctor to

visit a drunk's allegedly ailing mother and requests the

costs be charged to her account rather than give the money

directly to the drunk. The latter exits after feigning

deep gratitude but once outside criticizes Leonela's crafti­

ness and refusal to give him bus fare home. Again

Carballido treats deception among the poor but also pre­

sents redeeming qualities. The drunk gave Leonela the

address of a woman actually dying and in need of medical

attention. The same actors re-enter the refuge assuming a

variety of indigent roles. The stage darkens and they speak

directly to the audience listing all Leonela's good deeds, which range from providing medicines and jobs to education.

Following scenes present the two women discussing

their day's work and wishing that running water were avail­ able to all the poor. Leonela comments on the beauty of

the evening as Clementina expresses her adoring admiration

of the woman she likens to St. Francis, an idea of saint­

hood Leonela dismisses, claiming to be desirous only of 113

being a good Christian. The association between Leonela

and the Virgin of Guadalupe is made indirectly. The stage

gradually darkens and the chorus appears to introduce the

theme of Leonela's nephew, Eustaguio Tellez Gir6n: "un

ejemplo vivente de civismo, un verdadero ideol6go de nuestra Revoluci6n." (129)

The cast appears carrying political placards in favor of Eustaguio's candidacy as the major party's choice for

state governor. The posters bear the party colors which

are those of the national flag; PRI's colors are the same: red, white and green. The slogans indicate the candidate's honesty, patriotism, good citizenry, and progressiveness.

Suddenly two ecclesiastical types enter, a man and a woman, with placards of the reactionary parties' candidates. One party is PEN, an obvious allusion to PAN. The other party slogan mentions Christ leading its candidate and is called

UNZ, with the "Z" in the form of a swastika. Here the allusion is to the extreme rightist, militant and Catholic

Union Nacional Sinarguista (UNS), founded in 1937 and in­ fluenced by the fascism of Mussolini and the Nazism of

Hitler.58

The two token opposition party members are hooted and

shoved off stage to allow Eustaguio to deliver a brief political address, which is a satiric compilation of PRI rhetorical platform formulae and little more than a string of poster slogans: "La Gran Familia Mexicans, Gobierno y 114

Pueblo, ila Patria es primero! iTierra y libertad . . .,

Sufragio Efectivo, no Reelecci6n, Democracia y Justicia

Social."(130) Each formula refers to a major part of the

1917 Mexican Constitution embodying the ideals of the

Revolution. Economic stability tops the sequence of points elaborated as positive contributions of the Revolution. It is followed by national order and defense, the exemplary moral behavior upheld by Mexican women, an official polit­ ical ideology that maintains the status quo as a "pure" ideal, and peace based on respect for others' rights.

Eustaquio is carried out on the shoulders of his sup­ porters as the chorus sings a satire of voting procedures which typically entail the transportation of voters to the polls after plying them with food and drink:

Ahora toman la boleta con civismo y convicci6n, reflexionan y ya eligen qui6n serS gobernador. (130)

The humor develops as a would-be voter asks a stander-by how he should vote and for which candidate. The voter's belching belies recent drinking. The reply evokes the popular one-to-one conception of the relationship between

PRI and the Mexican government: d"No es ust£ mexicano?

Vote por los colores de la bandera." (131)

As the returns of the election are announced in favor of Eustaquio, silent and resigned, the two partisans of the PEN and UNZ parties cross the stage as the church bells 115 toll the peal of the dead, symbolizing the futility of op­ position parties in Mexico, the most prominent of which are

Church affiliated.

The stage darkens briefly and the lights come up on the newly-elected governor in consultation with an exper­ ienced hand in the government system of patronage, the

Licenciado. The ingenuous Eustaquio cedes to the suggested choices of his experienced colleague who proposes figures blemished by corruption for various offices. The Governor has doubts but is easily swayed by the argument that, "La fama de ratero nunca le ha estorbado la carrera politics a nadie. Pon a Mendez." (131) Carballido lampoons the national acceptance of political peculation as part and parcel, if not right, of office. The adviser next pro­ poses a general for the post of University rector who will

"meter en cintura a los rojetes." (132) In the early 1960s, the threat of Soviet communism in nearby Cuba gave rise to a reactionary tightening on leftist organizations and

Marxist groups in Mexico.

Leonela bursts into the session between Eustaquio and his consultant, and it transpires that the latter is a member of the industrial elite with multinational ties, thus alluding to and symbolizing the power and influence of the Coalici6n Revolucionaria on Mexican politics.

Leonela showers proud congratulations on her nephew, whom 116

she affectionately calls "Tiquin," and quickly departs.

Eustaquio wishes to incorporate the honest and trustworthy

Leonela into the government system. The following brief

scene records the response to Leonela's appointment as

director of the Social Welfare Agency from the Catholic

sectors of Mexican society.

A woman speaks to the audience as if addressing a

group of companions and expresses her gratitude that,

despite denial of the right to educate children religiously

in the public schools, God has at least blessed their

"movimiento familiar" by placing a true ally in the govern­

ment. A priest announces with joy from his pulpit the

appointment of a daughter of the Church to the government

position because "muchos beneficios sabr& desparramar con

sus manos." (133)

Two rapid scenes ensue with Leonela expressing her

gratitude, pride and commitment to work hard as head of

Social Welfare and with the Licenciado drinking and play­

ing cards with two friends to whom he patronizingly

describes Leonela congratulating "Tiquin" and Eustaquio's

pleas to him to condone her appointment. The Licenciado

takes the whole episode and appointment as an enormous joke.

The direct political satire of candidacy (Eustaquio), voting procedures (the drunk), patronage (the Licenciado)

and interest-group response (the Catholic Church) occurs

in rapid-fire sequence in five scenes separated by lighting 117

effects. The sequence provides the transition of Leonela

from her maternal mediator role as a "friend of the govern­

ment" (see page 110) to that of official mediator within the

government structure. The following half of the play pre­

sents the effects of this change on Leonela personally, on

her "constituents," and on the bureaucracy. The transition

is one of failure and emphasizes the inability of the

government and party structure to identify and mediate the

needs of the people it purportedly serves.

As the sign for Leonela's Refugio Guadalupano is taken

down and that of Direcci6n General de Asistencia Pdblica

put up, the chorus sings of the loss of Leonela's personal

charity organization and of the State's newly acquired

asset. Leonela and Clementina, accompanied by the poor,

arrive at the new office. The poor symbolically depart as

Leonela comments on the lack of "soul" in the official

title of her new home. A picture of the President adorns

one wall. The chorus describes the three office employees

assiduously at work for the benefit of their new boss'

first impression of them. The bureaucrats introduce them­

selves and greet Leonela.

The first conflict surfaces instantly when Leonela

suggests they begin their day in prayer. One social worker, Berta, objects on the grounds that all are not be­

lievers and that it is a government office. Leonela understands but says all those who believe can pray with 118

her anyway. The second conflict occurs over the bureau­

cratic procedure which allows only the social workers to

have direct contact with the poor. Leonela's job is purely

administrative. She signs directives and approves peti­

tions. Clementina types, a task for which she is untrained

and which causes her much distress. Quietly laughing and mocking the prayers of the two novices, the three employees

leave Leonela and her tearful secretary to face the trials

ahead.

Four months pass and a normal routine has returned to

the office with Berta knitting, the others reading and eat­

ing while Leonela signs mountains of forms and Clementina

suffers at the typewriter. The paper work is a visual exaggeration for comic effect calling attention to a bureaucracy out of touch with the constituents it is sup­ posed to serve. What transpires next illustrates this visual message. An employee of the humorous name Amado

Hueso tries to prevent a peasant from seeing Leonela.

Their voices attract her attention, and Leonela comes out of her office and recognizes the peasant by name. She

learns he has spent a month trying to deliver a loaf of bread baked by his wife in thanks for Leonela's help at the

Refugio. The incident provokes Leonela to establish and exert the authority of her position as director of the agency: she and Clementina will henceforth receive all the poor personally and the bureaucrats will fill out the forms. 1X9

Reminded by Berta that the agency deals with large numbers of people, the angry Leonela counters she will see groups

as well if need be. Returning to her office surprised at and enjoying her new-found "don de mando," she turns over the portrait of the President on the wall thereby reveal­ ing a picture of the Virgin on the other side. The act symbolizes the re-establishraent of her maternal role and reinforces her association with the Virgin of Guadalupe.

As the chorus sings, their descriptions are enacted on stage. The poor enter the offices and leave contented, their problems resolved. Leonela allocates shoes, medicines, toys, stoves, kitchen utensils, mosquito nets; she provides balanced meals to prisoners and clothes to orphanages; she fills the hospitals with the sick until the wards overflow.

In a phone conversation with one protesting hospital,

Leonela exercises her authority, threatening the firing of the administrator if he does not resolve the overcrowding problem so that no desperately ill person is turned away.

Obviously pleased with the effect of her orders, Leonela muses outloud how easily the exercise of authority comes to her. Clearly, Leonela continues the personal charity of her Refugio Guadalupano regardless of the numbers with which she now must deal. Her resort to anger and command backed by threat indicate the corrupting influence of her high status. 120

Leonela and Clementina leave the office at nightfall, the scene paralleling their earlier departure from the

Refugio. Again Leonela remarks the beauty of the evening, and again they talk of sanitation for the poor. But this time the means to fulfill the former dream of providing the poor with water and showers are within their reach, so the two women decide to put their plan into action. The scene crystalizes the problems suggested in the former. Leonela's charitable acts through her new position are undertaken without realistic awareness of budgetary and political con­ straints. Consequently, she comes under press and govern­ ment criticism, which is revealed at a lavish cocktail party at the Governor's mansion where Eustaquio tries with great frustration to corner his aunt privately to enlighten her about the mistakes she has made that have made her a political embarrassment and liability to the State.

The party provides a humorous vehicle for Carballido to satirize the political aspirants, hangers-on, hypocrites and sycophants surrounding those in high position.

Eustaquio is busy posing for photographers and refuting allegations against Leonela by the opposition "prensa roja." A murmur runs through the crowds as Leonela enters surrounded by a fawning coterie of guests eager to do her bidding. She is now aware of her image as a maternal saint and consciously maintains it. In contrast to the adulation, another group makes fun of Leonela behind her back. It 121

turns out that the showers were sent to a settlement where

there were neither water pipes nor wells, such that the

poor sold the fixtures to a local hotel for profit, making

a mockery of Leonela's agency and the government image.

Eustaquio is also surrounded by admirers, one of whom

promises him a chain of movie houses, land, 70 percent of

the stock and a profit percentage if he will sign a con­

struction contract. Finally Eustaquio frees himself and

approaches Leonela to warn her to stop using government

offices for prayers and to take down the Virgin's picture.

Leonela does not understand but agrees to comply. Bedlam

breaks out as guests descend upon a waiter bearing caviar,

cognac and hors d'oeuvres; they grab and pocket the delica­

cies. A photographer requests a picture of Leonela and

Eustaquio together, and she loudly calls "Tiquin" to join

her. Furious but constrained by the surroundings,

Eustaquio orders Leonela to call him "sefior governador."

She is dumb-founded as the lights dim leaving her alone

under a spotlight murmuring, "Tiquin ya no es. . . Ya no es . . . el mismo. . (143). Of course, neither is she

the same. Carballido has paralleled the development of these two figures corrupted by office.

The following scene in Leonela's office shows

Eustaquio brandishing newspaper stories critical of the misuse of agency funds in the shower scandal. Leonela also

learns the fuel stoves allocated were either sold or used 122 with wood, the necessary fuel being unavailable and beyond the economic reach of the poor. Leonela is stunned by the apparent duplicity of the grateful recipients of the showers and other services. Next she is informed her budget has been overspent to the point all but two of her employees have been dismissed for want of funds to pay their sal­ aries. Eustaquio orders her to do nothing more than keep quiet, sign petitions, and not to mention his name in pub­ lic. She is to have no more direct contact with the poor.

He leaves in a fury, and Leonela, totally disillusioned and bitter, orders Clementina to type out her resignation. The scene marks the end of Leonela's personal transitional con­ flict between maternal, religious power and paternal civil government power. The break symbolizes to a degree the

Revolution's termination of Catholic influence and the initiation of secular political power over Mexican govern­ ment.

This second main segment of the play both describes the problems of the separation of Church and State and directly satirizes political processes. The inclusion of the two religious opposition parties of PEN and UNZ during

Eustaquio's campaign alludes to various organizations prominent in Mexican politics since the days of the Liga

Nacional Defensora de la libertad (L.N.D.L.R.) and of the peasant Cristeros of the 1920s, both sociopolitical re­ ligious groups that sought a return to Church governance of 123

the educational system, religious freedom and solutions to 59 land ownership problems. Other religious groups that

later organized to counter socialist reforms of LSzaro

Cardenas' government were the Obreros Guadalupanos and the . . ^ 60 Campesinos Smarquistas.

Despite the separation of Church and State in Article

3 of the Mexican Constitution, the Church has sustained itself as a viable institution throughout the Revolution, becoming more visible and influential as modern concepts of the sociopolitical obligations of the Church extend its activities in accordance with the Second Vatican Council's encouragement of involvement in social and economic justice and progress.^ The progressive sectors of the Church work through various Catholic organizations such as Accidn

Cat6lica, which controls the Movimiento Familiar Cristiano of some 80,000 members dedicated to promoting the Catholic faith, ending idolatrous pilgrimages, and attracting labor, commercial, professional and government management to its 62 ranks. Catholic movements in general have pressured continuously for the right of religious public education.

The two scenes praising Leonela's appointment to govern­ ment office briefly capture such ecclesiastical and lay movements within Mexico devoted to a return of strong

Church-State ties.

The satire of the political process moves along logi­ cally from campaigns to elections to political appointments. 124

The dependence of political parties on marginal sector

ignorance to garner votes is legion, not only in Mexico

but many Latin American nations, as well as in North Ameri- 6 3 can machine politics. In Mexico, the association between

PRI and the government is not only among the ignorant or marginally aware voter but is universal. The studies by

Purcell and Purcell note in Mexico's case that "an unde­

feated party is difficult to distinguish . . . from the 64 government." The study cites an evaluation of local elections in provincial Tzintzuntzan:

. . . elections here are, above all, a device to permit people to participate in patriotic mani­ festation to declare their pride in being Mexican.65

Obviously, the caricature of the inebriated voter and his impetus for participation flies in the face of such ideal­ ized ritual participation, although the ultimate appeal to him is made through his patriotic perceptions.

The caricature of the Licenciado satirizes the cor­ ruption and immorality which have long been the targets of critics of the Revolution who recognize that the no re- election law promotes legal but unethical profiteering from government office in the one-shot opportunity.

Nationalized industries and public works projects provide especially lucrative government contracts to companies frequently owned by politicians or opportunely created to receive the contract award.Frank Brandenburg has noted that just at the mid-level bureaucracy alone a minister or 125 director can leave his term of office with several cars, a 6 7 ranch and a million pesos. In general, Mexicans

con ambiciones que ascienden hasta lo alto de la cumbre burocr&tica . . . rara vez necesitan m&s de seis afios para acumular un capital que les permita retirarse por el resto de la v i d a . ^ 8

Access to continued lucrative government concessions and contracts is not necessarily cut off by the six-year term limitation since office-holders can circulate among various government positions once any given office term expires.

Although admission to office is by no means solely limited to relatives and friends of the ruling elite, who do ac­ tively seek to recruit new, young aspirants to office, the lucrative vertical patronage system does allow continued dominance of the "Coalici&n Revolucionaria" (see page 90' 69 through such means. The appointment of Eustaquio's aunt, dofia Leonela, as head of the Social Welfare Agency also represents the privileges of office, though the motives of this patronage appointment are not corrupt but inappro­ priate.

In the third main segment of the play the time returns to the dramatic present a year later. The guitar marks the transition with a single tense note played over and over, and the scene shifts to the river bank at dusk where the peasants still search for Porfirio's body. They are de­ lighted at the large catch of fish rewarding their efforts.

Otherwise, nothing has changed. 126

At Leonela's office Berta has become her efficient assistant. Leonela busies herself with mountains of paper­ work. Her treatment of Berta is abrupt, and she dismisses the announced arrival of an Indian delegation as an annoyance that is to be resolved by their filling out a request form for medicine to overcome a local epidemic.

She orders two women there on a private matter to be sent away. Here Carballido returns to the individual and col­ lective poor, both of whom Leonela now rejects in contrast to her earlier attitude and behavior. Again Carballido presents a balanced structure which presents two sides to the same situation.

The lights focus on the two women who wait patiently:

Domitila and her neighbor. The neighbor pleads with Berta to intercede on their behalf and let them see Leonela.

Berta, dubious, tells them to wait a few minutes until

Leonela leaves her office. Berta leaves and Domitila cries over memories of Porfirio. When Leonela appears she no longer recognizes the woman she helped a year earlier.

The neighbor explains their presence and asks Leonela for money for candles and coffee for the wake. Cynically,

Leonela accuses them of wanting money for liquor and

"orgies." Berta enters and explains they need money for the funeral. As she exits, Leonela tells Berta to investi­ gate the case and make a formal report. The neighbor tries to explain to Domitila Leonela's unexpected coldness and 127

distrust, so counter to her former openness and compassion.

Her explanation conveys well Carballido's typical humorous

irony: "Ella es muy buena, pero todo el mundo tiene sus de malas." (149) The chorus analyzes the change in Leonela as one from pleasure felt for doing good works and feeling morally uplifted individually to pleasure experienced from exerting influence and authority publically, a sensation

infinitely more satisfying. Leonela now prefers feeling powerful to feeling generous.

The scene shifts to the gringo encampment and the arrival of Berta to investigate the merits of Domitila's petition. Berta is accompanied by Erasto. The gringo explains the drowning as a pure accident that has caused them great personal consternation. He is quick to divorce his operation from any responsibility as the workers are volunteers and under no contract. He attempts to pay Berta for her trouble in order to hasten her departure and to promote a favorable report of the American role in the incident. Berta plays the innocent until the gringo in­ creases his payoff. She then quietly hands the money over to Domitila, who thinks the money has come from the "gov­ ernment.” Berta's action reflects her practical compre­ hension of the circumstances and her commitment to the peasants.

Berta returns with her report to Leonela's office, the latter recalling the story of the two women only after much 128

prodding from Berta. Leonela is greatly irritated by yet

another report to add to the mountains already on her desk.

Si se hiciera un reporte por cada muerto, por cada enfermo, por cada indigente, no alcanzar£a todo el papel gue hay en el Estado. dY por que estSn asf? Por sinverguenzas y tramposos, por sucios, por em- busteros y farsantes, por vividores. Chilian como pajarracos hambrientos, hasta que les llenan el buche. Se les vacia: vuelven a chillar. Me han robado los anos de mi vida, me han hecho parecer estupida y ladrona, ia mi, que les gast§ cuanto dinero me sobraba! Me hacian creer que era yo bue­ na: idiota, eso era yo. Mi tiempo, mi dinero, todo tirado al poso. Quisiera yo juntarlo otra vez: abriria mi Refugio de nuevo, nada m&s para darme el gusto de echarlos a empujones.

Berta replies that perhaps they will, that one never knows.

Her line is delivered casually and is the only line in the play that infers any sort of potential, future self- assertion on the part of the marginal Mexican. Carballido posits no thesis or revolt and no propaganda. By implica­ tion he suggests there may be cause for peasant reaction and leaves it to the audience to judge further.

Leonela agrees to pay for a modest coffin and funeral, but no money is to be sent or it will be wasted on alcohol.

Berta tries to explain the lack of a corpse, which Leonela interprets as a trick to get money out of the government for drink. Leonela agrees to authorize a coffin and noth­ ing more. Berta is now angry at Leonela's intransigence and vows to herself that the coffin will be the best money can buy. 129

Despite the practical evaluation of Domitila's needs on Berta's part, Berta provides a seemingly impractical service: a tastelessly rococo but luxuriously appointed coffin. Berta knows there is no body and the coffin is therefore useless at face value. However, the coffin has a market value, and Berta knows it can be sold for profit.

This is not stated directly, but, like so much of Car­ ballido1 s comment in the play, it is implicit. Berta, after all, witnessed the debacle of the shower fixtures and stoves. She adapts the impractical bureaucratic system the best she can. Carballido has presented the audience with enough examples of government process and peasant response for the audience to foresee a "use" for the coffin from the peasant perspective.

The remainder of the play is devoted to the arrival of the coffin and the village reaction. The treatment is light and the effect comedic. What to do with the white elephant? Domitila is willing to bury it empty, but her practical neighbor recognizes the waste involved in such a solution. The humor rests in the ignorance on the part of

Nieves and the others who first do not identify the elab­ orate "trunk" as a coffin, in the inability to decipher the letters RIP, in the failure of the men to help move the cumbersome object to a suitable storage place (including a chicken coop where a hen lays an egg on the coffin), in the passing around and hiding of a bottle of aguardiente for 130 the funeral guests, and in the vibrations caused by the passing trains which cause the coffin to fall out of the corner in which it is eventually precariously placed, sending Domitila and Nieves scurrying periodically to pre­ vent it crashing down. The satiric value of the peasant ignorance of the meaning of RIP (Requiescat in pace— Rest in Peace) underscores the religious and secular Church-

State separation alluded to throughout the play and also the state assumption of the traditional religious paternal role. The satire lies in the empty gestures (the coffin) and responsive rhetoric (Rest in Peace) which characterize government agrarian programs. It may also be noted that the transposition of RIP would render the government party initials PRI.

An aged, cigar-smoking neighbor woman, dofia Dalia, asks how Domitila and Nieves will live since the government will send no more money. "Pues de milagro. . . £De que vives tu? cDe qu§ viven todos? De milagros. Pues de eso mismo vamos a vivir nosotras." (157) Dalia suddenly begins an attack of coughing and all rush to her aid. An unex­ pected "miracle" presents itself. The thought is trans­ mitted through glances that perhaps the coffin will be of use after all, and, in effect, the chorus sings of Dalia's death and the sale of the coffin to her relatives, thus providing a profit for Domitila and Nieves. The actors take off their peasant clothes and the play returns to its 131

starting point as both chorus and actors alternate comments

on the story they have presented. Their moralizing states

that individual charity among neighbors is virtuous but

that on a large-scale, national level it promotes corrup­

tion, is short-lived and costly because there are few saints and many devils. Far better one deal with problems common to the collectivity. What is needed is not charity but justice: "No queremos caridad,/s6lo quermos justicia."

(159)

The actors bring the play full circle back to their own constraints as an underdeveloped theatre group lacking financial support, a decent theatre, adequate publicity and programs. Of course, their situation is analagous to that of the peasants they have just represented in their needs for financial aid, housing, education, and programs. They request part-time jobs during the morning so they can afford to live: "... hacemos Arte!. . ., pero no ganamos much." (160) The peasants need work to overcome seasonal unemployment; they provide or produce food but earn little.

The actors want funds to enable the production of their play for those who cannot afford tickets. Warmed to the subject, one actress passionately asks

que se respete siempre nuestra Constituci6n, y que se saneen los sindicatos, y que se le de educacidn civica al Pueblo, y que liberten a los. . . (Le tapan la boca entre todos.) (160) 132

The line unfinished, the chorus sings that all their re­ quests have met with the official response:

y ora ustedes iqu£ se train? iSilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maiz! (160)

The words recall those of Leonela about the poor always screeching like avaricious birds to be fed.

There is nothing thematically revolutionary in Car- ballido's play. His solutions are not ideologically cast nor strongly pressed either through the actors or through the underplayed comments of Berta regarding collective problems and potential marginal sector initiatives. Rather,

Carballido suggests or hints at areas where renewed com­ mitment and political reform are necessary within the

Mexican Revolution.

When questioned in a 1973 interview about the effect of didactic theatre, Emilio Carballido stated he felt theatre had little direct influence in changing audiences and that socially didactic theatre effects only those who already share the presented perspective. He went on to say that

el teatro did&ctico a mi no me da mucha emocidn. . . Que si he hecho teatro de tipo did&ctico, por lo general emotivo,

It is the humor of satire which conveys the play's critical impact and through which Carballido appeals to his audience in order to "emotivizar" them through sharing his premise that for certain sectors of Mexican society the Revolution has failed. The illustrative parable of the bureaucracy's institutionalization of charity speaks to the larger idea of paternal attitudes that have continued Mexican internal underdevelopment. The actors' opening and closing scenes form a prologue and epilogue to this parable. The prologue introduces the premise of underdevelopment; the stories of

Porfirio and Leonela illustrate it, and the epilogue states the lesson.

We may now see the overall interplay of structure and theme in ISilencio, polios pelones. . . in a clearer light.

The central core is found in Leonela's story and her three- part development which basically parallels the history of the Twentieth Century Mexican political focus as it has related to the peasant sector: 1) Leonela's maternal Virgin role: the religious patriarchal charity of pre-Revolutionary

Mexico; 2) Leonela's religious-secular conflict: the Mexican

Revolution; and 3) Leonela's indifferent bureaucratic role: post-Revolutionary secular and democratic social justice through paternalism. Enclosing this structural core is the 134 story of the plight of the dependent peasant sector sym­ bolized through Porfirio and his family, which is in turn enclosed or framed in the cultural situation symbolized in the dependent author/actor situation which opens and closes the play. Despite the apparent structural changes implicit in the Mexican Revolution, the attitude of charity has re­ mained unchanged, moving only from a religious to a secular expression. Attitudinal stagnation and perpetration there­ fore contour the closed dramatic structure of Carballido's drama.

The framing of the play by the actors' "nonfictional" complaints has several additional functions. Eugene R.

Skinner notes its impact as a directly didactic vehicle and the credibility it lends to the stories of Porfirio and 71 Leonela as an "accurate reflection of reality." It also paints a realistic picture of the problems facing Mexican national theatre: lack of remunerated employment for dramatists and actors, the limitation of theatre to those sectors that can afford tickets, and the lack of respect and economic support for the theatre in general. As Skin­ ner notes, these complaints parallel those of the dominated sectors in the play subjected to the social, economic and 72 political manipulation of those who govern. The problems are, as the actors note at the play's outset, those of internal underdevelopment. 135

Carballido's general dramatic goal of providing his audience with a better understanding of its universe is executed in ISilencio, polios pelones. . . through his con- i sistent presentation of multiple perspectives, largely accomplished through paralleling and pairing characters, situations and attitudes. There are, for example, two main structures complementing each other: the actors' frame­ work of the play and the play itself. Within the main play two stories are presented and synthesized, as are two sets of protagonists. Within each protagonist group, pairing is also evident: Porfirio and Domitila, Leonela and Eustaquio,

Clementina and Berta, the two gringos, the refined and the vulgar actors. There are two marginal sectors— rural and urban; two views of honesty and laziness— the men and the women; two dominant-subordinate attitudes toward the poor— presidential and gubernatorial paternalism (State) and maternalism (Church); and two general attitudes toward the poor— Leonela's subjectivity (maternal/paternal) and

Berta's objectivity (egalitarian). These structural and thematic parallels and pairings provide the play with external and internal symmetry and balance.

With the eight actors playing 21 parts, the character­ ization is minimal and broad to exaggerate relevant typify­ ing aspects that promote the author's attempt to maintain nonassociative distance between any given character and the audience. Carballido has stated in his "Notas a los 136 actores y al director" that

La obra es una farsa. Lo cual no impide que los momentos pat^ticos deban serlo sin vacilaci6n al- guna. (Especialmente la muerte de Porfirio). Esto no es impropio del g6nero. Las salidas de tono romperSn el patetismo, pero tambi^n lo acentuarSn. (162)

Emotional events include Porfirio's death, Domitila's vari­ ous scenes of grief, and Leonela's anger and assumption of command at the agency. However, these moments are relieved by accentuating and contrasting transitions, frequently executed by the choral songs or by collective scenes which present the audience with a general statement after the individual moment of pathos.

The independent episodic scenes underscore the separa­ tion of the government from the people and provide

Carballido flexibility to show a wide range of vignettes dealing with braceros, gringos, internal migration, cam­ paigns, elections, patronage, petitioning procedures, social mobility, and bureaucracy. Although there is chronological sequence in the ordering of the scenes, each scene can be viewed as a separate entity within the total process

Carballido seeks to satirize. Unity and transition are provided by the temporal evolution, by the two basic stories developed, by the focus on a core of protagonists, by the chorus and music, by leitmotifs such as honesty and female strength, and by the paralleling and pairing of structures mentioned above. The division of the body of 137

the play into three main segments emphasizes the lack of

interpenetration of one segment to the other.

Porfirio's symbolic case is set off in the first divi­

sion and presents the problem of marginal subsistence in

agrarian sectors. The final scenes of this division posit

a solution which lies outside these sectors in both geo­ graphic and political terms. That solution is the govern­ ment, the peasant concept of which is hazy at best, and, as pointed out earlier, implies a subjective or passive 73 orientation. The government is located far away in the state capital and not within immediate access through a developed vertical political system. No interest group represents Porfirio and the peasants who work for the gringos without benefit of contract. Gonzalez Casanova notes that, lacking organizations, parties, or institutions for legal protest, there is the tendency of marginal sec­ tors to press their demands through paternalistic channels that are republican in form and traditional in content but that frequently manifest themselves through

formas tradicionales de stiplica y petici6n a las agendas gubernamentales, de queja, en los organismos politicos para-gubernamentales, en que la stiplica se hace m&s humilde y la queja se acentua mc i s , con- forme mcis humilde y marginal es el ciudadano o grupo de ciudadanos que la formulan, o a cuyo nombre se formula.74

This is the path taken by Domitila's neighbor and suggested to Domitila. Hers is an expectation based not on the posi­ tion so much as on the personality of Leonela who has become 138 a government bureaucratic representative.

The second segment presents the role of the informal and formal intermediary which joins Porfirio's case to the third segment. Carballido juxtaposes the second and third temporal divisions, and indeed chooses to divide Leonela's story into past and present, to underline her transition from informal to formal mediator to illustrate the legiti­ mate spheres of charity and justice, and to mark the dis­ tance and separation between the poor and the government.

The second segment occurs not in the rural but in the urban environment. The marginal urban poor have their in­ formal mediator or intermediary in Leonela, associated with the Virgin of Guadalupe or Church. The principle attribute of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Indian Virgin so central to

Mexican Catholicism, is to provide refuge to the downtrod­ den; she is the "consolation of the poor, the shield of the weak, the help of the oppressed . . . the intermediary, the messenger between disinherited man and the unknown, inscrut- 75 able power: the Strange." Hence, if we apply this defi­ nition by Octavio Paz to Carballido's play, we see the latter's reliance on national religious traditions and images to satirize the paternal communication between the governed and those who govern, that is, the "inscrutable power."

Leonela's association with the Virgin both in the

Refugio Guadalupano statue and in the Social Welfare 139

Agency picture of the Virgin on the back of the President's portrait reinforces the paternal-subordinate relationships emphasized by Carballido in the treatment of Mexico's mar­ ginal sectors. Gonz&lez Casanova aptly describes this form of relationship in Mexico:

Las masas lo (al intermediario) perciben en actitudes providenciales; mSs que como un representante o instrumento politico como un ser moral que puede ser bueno o malo, digno de odios o afectos, proveedor a su arbitrio de beneficios o desgracias. Frente a 61 no existe este tipo de razonamiento que caracteriza a las presiones y negociaciones de la sociedad poli- tica moderna, sino el tipo de razonamiento que en un Weltanschauung religosa corresponde a las plegarias, las expectativas de milagros y las rogativas que se hacen a la divinidad o a los santos, y al uso de sig- nos y simbolos que son titiles para ahuyentar a los demonios.76

Since the land produces too little on which to maintain a family, since working for the gringos is lucrative rela­ tive to national options but beset by adverse and hazardous working conditions and lack of protection, and since govern­ ment assistance provides impractical services that are stop­ gap in nature and do not answer long-term needs or address root causes, it is no wonder the peasant falls back on hope and faith, on occasional "saints," and, as Domitila con­ cludes, on "miracles."

The historical, deep-seated traditions of dependency going back to Mexico's colonial and caudillo periods are evident in the contemporary political period where the

President symbolizes authority and prestige that spills over and down through the patronage system. Leonela bridges 140 concepts of State and Church paternalism through her asso­ ciation with the Virgin of Guadalupe and her appointment to government office. The double-faced portrait symbolizes these connected but now separated institutions. Leonela's difficulties over prayers and over displaying the Virgin's portrait in state offices symbolize the conflict between them. What Carballido says here indirectly, then, is that neither the government (PRI) nor the Catholic-based opposi­ tion parties offer viable solutions to Mexican internal underdevelopment and marginalism.

Whereas Leonela's individual measures in her Refugio

Guadalupano as a private citizen alleviate the immediate burdens of the poor within the urban environment, giving rise to her personal cult, they fall wide the mark in the large-scale state operation. Her ignorance of government procedures, budgets, and public relations combine with her pride to cause her downfall. When she finally insists the poor be allowed entrance to her office, Berta gently tells her "Tambi6n hay problemas de grupos, no s6lo individuales."

(137) The attitude of noblesse oblige, of a paternal or maternal caretaker image and role for the government, is no substitute for justice, which as the chorus states, is the right of the poor. The state has constitutionally declared itself democratic and secular and has the responsibility to provide official and effective mediators for all levels of society. The actors' final comments request the upholding 141 of the 1917 Constitution to call attention to the failure to fulfill that responsibility. One point of Carballido's satire is that the state should address the causes of poverty.

An obvious area clearly suggested by Carballido is that of unemployment and underemployment among marginal sectors.

Despite land distribution programs, so many individual owners possess such small land plots and lack of adequate irrigation that they cannot provide for even their own family's subsistence: the case of Porfirio. Other income sources are sought, such as the gringo operation in the highlands, which create problems of job safety and labor protection from exploitation. Whereas the Mexicans would be worse off economically were it not for the American oper­ ation, the question of safety and sub-standard living still remains. The evidence presented that the Mexicans deserve the gringo accusation of dishonesty does not address the deeper cause of that dishonesty, which is left to audience determination. As stated earlier the river crossing alludes to the plight of braceros and wetbacks who crossed American borders for better wages.

Leonela is the most developed character and the only main figure who exhibits change. A childless widow of eight years, she devotes herself to benefiting others. She is a maternal figure as evidenced by her relationship with

Tiquin and the poor, and by her association with the Virgin of Guadalupe. Skinner interprets her role as one of 77 representing a dominant-subordinate relationship. She dominates morally and later politically. Leonela admin­ isters her mission of charity with generosity and good will.

However, once appointed social welfare director for the state, she becomes increasingly aware of her goodness and saintliness, of her moral superiority, which becomes more and more a studied effect. Just as charity becomes open to corruption on the state level, so does Leonela. She begins to enjoy the perquisites of power. Her image supercedes the ideal it portrays, and when the scandal of the shower fixtures hits the "leftist" press along with her use of government offices for religious purposes of prayer,

Eustaquido denies her the means to further her maternal 78 mission and image. She may no longer call him Tiquin, publicly pray, dispense charity, or have contact with the poor. Unable to see objectively that her gifts to the poor were superficial gestures that avoided addressing root prob­ lems of poverty and in fact encouraged illegitimate use of government funds and services, she translates their actions on a personal level as deception and feels her pride wounded. She becomes cynical, distrustful of the poor and desirous of revenge. Her personal failure parallels the larger failure of the government bureaucracy that

Carballido satirizes: the inability to function beyond the surface level and to deal with endemic problems in order 14 3

to overcome relationships of dependency. Thus, we immedi­

ately see Carballido1s criticism as two-pronged: individual

paternalism and state paternalism.

Berta as a minor character and counter to Leonela be­

comes the latter's mirror image in reverse. Initially

indifferent and lazy, along with the other bureaucrats in

the agency, Berta develops a sensitivity to the poor and

evidences a growing efficiency, sympathy and understanding.

She presents a contrast to Leonela in her realistic and

objective relationship to the poor and in her appraisal of

their needs. As Leonela recoils and shuts out the poor,

Berta becomes more responsive and open to them, going into

the country to evaluate their situation. Her acts of

charity increase as Leonela's decrease. Her charity, unlike

Leonela*s, is not sentimental and self-centered for her own moral gratification, but rather is an enlightened and ob­

jective response. Carballido states key ideas through

Berta twice, once when the social worker attempts to open

Leonela's eyes to the fact that they are dealing with large groups and again when she responds to Leonela's accusation

that the poor do nothing for themselves by suggesting their potential for changing their plight. However, both com­ ments occur in scenes in which Leonela receives emotional

focus and are delivered with serious if casual calm, which may contrast with Leonela's vituperative remarks and therefore stand out. 144

Besides Berta's comments and Berta's role itself, the only other solution posited by Carballido within Porfirio's and Leonela's stories occurs when Leonela attempts to com­ prehend the failure of her shower project. She responds to the fact that there were no pipes to which to connect the fixtures by accusing the Governor: "Eso es culpa tuya, lo de las canerias.

The criticisms and suggestions which come at the play's end through the humor and satire of the actors' pleas to both audience and government are directly didactic and politically specific. Carballido synthesizes both the actors' marginal status and the poor's marginal status. The political moral or lesson derived from the play is that government charity is no substitute for justice. Addition­ ally, in the case of the actors, elitist audiences are no substitute for national support of the Arts. The prescrip­ tion for reform applies in both cases: adherence to the

Mexican Revolution's Constitution, an end to organized cor­ ruption, civic education for all, and freedom from imprison­ ment for opposition. This is a call for law, honesty, edu­ cation and freedom, but not within the current political formal and informal structures of the Mexican Revolution. CHAPTER II

CUBA

Antdn Arrufat has been considered one of the most metaphysical of the contemporary Cuban dramatists, a direc­ tion most typically expressed by him through theatre of the absurd.^" Therefore, his Los siete contra Tebas, written in verse and closely following much of the Aeschylan Greek classical model, Seven Against Thebes, stands out among

Arrufat's works in its deviation from his absurdist norm.

Arrufat's focus in Los siete contra Tebas is primarily political. His drama is one of the few nonpropaganda political plays of dramatic merit in the 1960s whose action takes place within the historical bounds of the Cuban 2 Revolution and deals directly with it. The aim of this chapter is to investigate and analyze the manner in which

Arrufat has reworked the original tragedy, to discover the political comment of the play, and to penetrate its mode of dramatic expression.

The basic political background to which Arrufat's drama relates is that of the period between the success of the 26th of July Movement in 1959 and the 1961 Bay of Pigs and Playa Girdn invasion. Also of importance are the major 14 5 146

Revolutionary directions of the government during the 1960s that might have provoked the creation of Arrufat's Los siete contra Tebas and its subsequent condemnation by the

Revolution as counter-Revolutionary.

Since Cuban independence in 1902, the economic and political climate of the island was determined by United

States interests in sugar, mining, and utilities, and the inevitable trade quotas imposed by the North American power which ultimately prevented Cuban autonomy. A second char­ acteristic of the Cuban Republic was the lack of ideologically-based political institutions and a developed class consciousness among the urban and rural proletariats.

The pribend and bribe, backed by political violence and brutality, were hallmarks from 1902 to 1959 and epitomized the dictatorships of Gerardo Machado and Fulgencio Batista.

With few exceptions, to rule in Cuba really meant to obey— to harken to the demands of the socio­ economic complex which actually controlled the re­ public. Thus exempted from governing the nation, political hands were free to "administer" public funds. Toleration for dishonesty was the reward for political compliance, and there was no strong nationalistic force that could break this vicious circle.3

Despite the far-reaching social reforms and the liberal democratic goals of the 1940 Constitution and the various reform-oriented politicians throughout Cuban twentieth cen­ tury history (such as Grau, Guiteras, and Eduardo Chibas), these possible avenues to honest government, national autonomy, and social democracy were not successful. Whereas 147 programs frequently included platforms for improved working conditions, independence from United States imperialist controls, and social reforms (nationalism, anti-imperialism, 4 socialism), they were typically issue-oriented and general in statement with no concrete back-up programs for imple­ mentation. They also reflected the heterogeneous character of the groups purporting their adoption. Into the vacuum of such a history came Fidel Castro.

As is well-known, Castro's first appearance in the national limelight was his abortive attack on the Moncada

Army Headquarters in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953, when he led some 200 men in an attempt to arouse the Cuban peo­ ple to overthrow the repressive regime of Fulgencio

Batista. Castro was arrested and jailed for two years. His program at the time called for strict adherence to the 1940

Constitution and included agrarian reform, profit-sharing among workers and rent decreases, the last two measures being far more radical than those of the Ortodoxo(Communist

Party) and PSP (Popular Socialist Party) programs.

Castro organized the 26th of July Movement from Mexico in 1955 and returned to Cuba in 1956. Once home, he broke with the opposition groups and led 82 supporters into the

Sierra Maestra to begin the guerrilla war he would wage with some 20 surviving followers for two years. In 1957, two anti-Batista opposition leaders met with Castro in the

Sierra and signed a joint manifesto calling for 148

Batista's resignation; the retention of anti-Batista mili­

tary forces; nonintervention on the part of the United

States, with the latter ceasing all arms shipments to the dictator; general elections within a year; restoration of civil liberties; and agrarian reform with indemnification.

Castro later, importantly, asserted his personal right to reorganize the armed forces and to name the provisional president. The manifesto momentarily retained middle and upper-class support for Castro, which was added to that of the trade unions, working classes and the poor rural sec­ tors. These groups provided Castro with a broad hetero­ geneous political coalition, again, without any specific ideological base. The Revolution was not of a single class character. Its impetus did not surge from trade unions, peasants or rural wage laborers, the bourgeoisie, students and professionals, or from the PSP. Even when in power, the Revolution moved back and forth at any given time in 5 its support for the sectors indicated. After the success of the Rebel Army, Castro quickly instituted widely pub­ licized Revolutionary courts to try the batistianos; g those guilty of capital crimes were executed. The jails were soon filled with more prisoners than had been in them under Batista.^ During the early months of the Revolution­ ary Government, many Castro supporters from the Sierra

Maestra and a number of liberal backers in high-level positions became aware of the gradual shift toward a 149

communist socialist state and withdrew their commitment to

the Revolution. They were either punished or went into

exile. The classic case was that of Humberto Matos, which will be discussed later. Between 1959 and mid-1962, some

200,000 Cubans had abandoned the island, many fleeing to

Miami where scores of clandestine counter-Revolutionary organizations were spawned. The latter soon became a thorn

in Cuban-United State relations as Castro continuously pressured Washington and the United Nations to put an end to

the terrorist air-flights over Cuba perpetrated by the exiled Cubans in Florida.**

It is important to note that, during this time,

Castro's popularity continued undiminished among the major­

ity of the people, who lauded his agricultural coopera­ tives along with the rent and utilities decreases. Import tariffs and travel restrictions were of little importance to the masses who were enjoying more buying power and more medical and educational services than ever before. Unful­ filled promises had been replaced with tangible gains, and, as Hugh Thomas noted, "Para las masas cubanas, Castro todavia representaba no solo una esperanza, sino un 9 logro." Thomas also stated that for the first time in

Cuban history justice was free of corruption.

La injusticia en el trato dispensado a los contrarre- voluncionarios o a los sosphechosos de serlo, a la mayoria le parecia justificable en un caso de emergencia, o quizas un justo quid pro quo despuds 150

de generaciones de negligencia, consciente o inconsciente.10

In addition to the rent and utilities decreases and

land distribution under the Agrarian Reform Act of May

1959, the Revolution had begun the seizure of a number of

American-owned cattle ranches, mines, sugar plantations, and refineries. It nationalized certain foreign and domestic enterprises and banking interests and increased sugar exports to the USSR. State planning and control under the guidance of a Czechoslovakian assistance team and Che Guevara's centralization of development through state budget allocations replaced former market mechanisms and brought all national development directly under Castro's purview.

Despite the communist ideology early and openly espoused by Raul Castro and Che Guevara, Castro had care­ fully avoided association of the 26th of July Movement and the Revolution with the Cuban PSP, frequently denying com­ munist leanings and pressures, though some communists did hold positions throughout his government. The infamous

April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion led by Cuban exiles and

North American mercenaries who were trained by the United

States and backed by United States air support through the

Central Intelligence Agency with the tacit approval of

Washington was, according to many critics, to mark the ideological turn of the Revolutionary Government toward a 151 communist commitment. Castro had long feared and expected

United States intervention. His anxiety in this quarter was based on past Cuban history and, of course, was not without justification, as events were to prove. The cur­ rent flights out of Florida and various subversive counter-

Revolutionary bombings and plots within Cuba fueled his suspicions, as did comments, accusations and condemnations by American congressmen calling for sanctions against the

Cuban government.^ With the defeat of the exiles at the

Bay of Pigs, Castro proclaimed Cuba a "socialist" state and his first reference to Marxist-Leninist ideological inten­ tions were made publically. The Revolutionary Directorate, the PSP and the 26th of July Movement were soon merged into the Organizacion Revolucionaria Integrada (ORI), which was later to become the Partido Communista Cubano (PCC). Cuba was declared on the side of the Soviet bloc in the Cold War.

Irving Louis Horowitz has characterized the Cuban socialist state of the 1960s as subordinated to the party and the army, directed by Castro and his personally- selected inner circle of spokesmen. It is involved in in­ ner political rather than class struggle, is dominated by a single-crop economy (sugar) whose development policies superceded political debate and socialist democracy, and is centered on national rather than international prob- lems.i 12 152

The areas of greatest success occurred in health care, universal access to education and more equitable distribu­ tion of national wealth and income. The latter, or course, implied a tremendous upheaval in the traditional social structure of the island and explained the number of exiles from the upper and middle classes who lost the most materially.

It is the specific period of 1959 to 1961 to which Los siete contra Tebas refers, although it must not be forgot­ ten that Antdn Arrufat wrote the play from the perspective of seven years later, in 1968. A general review of theatre during this period sheds light on Arrufat's use of a classical model and its relationship to the Revolution and helps to place his last dramatic work to date in histori­ cal perspective.

Prior to the Batista dictatorship of 1952, Cuban theatre had followed two basic directions. The first was popular comic theatre expressed in the zarzuela and sainete of the Spanish tradition and in the creole bufo theatre and light musicals. The other was basically realistic drama with heavy concentration on social commen­ tary which attacked racism, machismo, social hypocrisy, the vacuity of Havana society, economic and social exploi­ tation of the rural and urban proletariat, and violence and immorality in Cuban urban life in general. Josd

Antonio Ramos, Luis Baralt, Paco Alfonso, Carlos Felipe and 153

Virgilio Pinera are perhaps the best known of the drama­ tists in the second category.

After a decade stifled by political repression and economic uncertainty and marked by an expected decline in quality dramatic productions, a new generation of writers began producing some of the most outstanding theatre in

Latin America under the Revolution. Freedom of expression, economic support, and access to publication and representa­ tion created a veritable Renaissance in the Cuban theatre of the 1960s.

Social realism appeared in the works of Abelardo

Estorino, Jose R. Brene, Manuel Reguera Saumell, Hector

Quintero and Jestis Diaz. Ant6n Arrufat, Jos6 Triana and

Nicolas Dorr won widespread recognition as authors of sur­ realistic and absurdist tendencies, or as exponents of a theatre of cruelty. The works of Arrufat and Triana were considered at the vanguard of Latin American theatre.

The early Republic and the Machado and Batista dicta­ torships had produced some of Cuba's first political theatre. Jose Antonio Ramos' Tembladera addressed socio­ economic oppression by foreign interests and the Cuban upper class; Luis A. Baralt's Junto al rio treated the political environment of the Machado era; Paco Alfonso dealt with the exploitation of the workers, racism, and politics. In the

1940s, he directed the Teatro Popular of the Confederaci&n 154 de Trabajadores Cubanos (CTC) which specialized in politi­ cal propaganda works.

During the early years of the Revolution, Abelardo

Estorino's El robo del cochino focused on the corrupt family life of the provincial upper classes and on the effects of Castro's Sierra Maestra guerrilla movement on the generations of one family. The focus was social but the background was specifically political. Manuel Reguera

Saumell's El general Antonio estuvo aqui and La soga al cuello also dealt with the family caught between traditional rural and urban bourgeois values under the pressures of revolutionary social change. Within the absurdist theatre,

Jos£ Triana's La noche de los asesinos presented the ritual murder of one generation of a family by another, of one society by another, neither family or society free from the values of its victims and thereby still paradoxically vic­ tim to it. Triana's previous theatre was entirely located 13 within a pre-Revolutionary political context. Jesus Diaz' theatre, Los anos duros and Unos hombres y otros, based on his short stories, was perhaps the most directly political theatre of the known writers, in addition to Arrufat1s Los siete contra Tebas.

Writing of Cuban theatre during the 1960s, Rine Leal underlined the need for a new national image arising from the Revolution: 155

No se trata de panfletos, de politiquerfa o de chauvinismo, sino de algo mSs serio y profundo, de crear una verdadera dram^tica nacional y po- nerla al servicio de los nuevos publicos . . . es decir, un teatro que exponga sus grandes pro- blemas . . . este teatro no puede preocuparse de problemas personales o privativos del autor, sino de los profundos conflictos que marcan las dpocas, las naciones y los hombres y proyectarlos de una manera directa y funcional para los espec- tadores. . .15

Leal wrote the above in 1959. At the end of a round table held in 1963, dramatists Pinera, Arrufat, Triana,

Estorino, Brene and Dorr were asked if their theatre ten years hence would reflect the present moment of the Revolu­ tion, given the need for temporal perspective to give a balanced evaluation of current reality. Triana responded dubiously, feeling that perhaps within four or five years, yes, but he stated that the dramatist tends to transcend and mythify reality regardless.^ Arrufat answered more di­ rectly and from within an historical perspective, referring to the Greek dramatists who wrote within a society already consolidated, whereas Cuban society was in the process of a new consolidation:

es lfcito esperar que vivamos dentro de la nueva estructura que se est£ creando . . . con . . . naturalidad . . . para que podamos reflejaria con identica naturalidad . . . sin falsos esquemas ni lecciones aprendidas.17

He went on to say that the dramatist reflects what the peo­ ple do and how they live, and that if a dramatist lives within socialism he will create socialist works or works that reflect socialism, that the current crisis of the 156

bourgeois world which was beginning to end would be carried 18 over historically into the future and reflected there.

This is precisely what occurred thematically with

Cuban theatre in the 1960s, an evolution from topics of a

pre-Revolutionary society to those of both societies in

conflict. Los siete contra Tebas by Arrufat, La noche de

los asesinos by Triana, Los mangos de Cain by Estorino, La

soga al cuello by Reguera Saumell, are but a few examples.

Of particular interest in this regard is Terry Palls'

statement that absurdist drama was "particularly well-suited to the expression of disorientation which this change im- 19 plied." And absurdist theatre was exactly Ant6n Arru­

fat 's first and foremost expression: El vivo al polio

(1961), Los dfas llenos (1962), La repeticidn (1963), El ultimo tren (1963), and Todos los domingos (1966).

Arrufat was not alone as an essentially absurdist playwright who turned to Greek tragedy for thematic and structural direction. A generation earlier, in 1941,

Virgilio Pinera's Electra Garrigd parodied Sophocles'

Electra with absurdist scenes and exposed the middle-class

Cuban family to violent destruction of its identity for purposes of social criticism. Jos£ Triana's Medea en el espejo (1960) reinterpreted the classical myth and certain elements of Euripides' tragedy to develop themes of racial and social emancipation of Cuban society. The latter is symbolized in a mulatto, Medea, while racism, political 15 7

corruption, and colonialism are treated as historical char- 20 acteristics of Cuban life.

Whereas the Revolution provoked the rebirth of Cuban

theatre, it also was responsible for the demise of its

early direction and the dramatic production of Arrufat's

generation. It did not stop national productions but re­

directed them, as we shall see.

Theatre under the Revolutionary Government is funded

by and is responsible directly to the Consejo Nacional de

Cultura which can censor material. The Consejo is run by

performers, artists, and writers who oversee the numerous

amateur and professional state and independent theatres,

drama festivals, the Escuela de Instructores de Arte,

which has a dramatic arts branch, and various drama compe­

titions. Between 1958 and 1969, professional theatre

groups in Havana alone increased frtjm six to thirty; out­

door performances each commonly drew audiences of over 21 1000. By the late 1960s, the Teatro del Tercer Mundo

had formed and was dedicated to an exclusively political

repertoire whose purpose has been to "integrate culture

and revolution" and increase Cuban commitment to a world- 22 wide socialist revolution. Of greater innovation was the

foundation of the Teatro Escambray, which undertook to take

theatre to the Sierra and to produce drama relevant to the people's needs and problems based on intensive on-site

studies of their daily economic, political, social and 158 cultural life. Like many of those in trade unions, fac­ tories and collectives throughout Cuba, this is a partici­ patory theatre which encourages audience in-put and criti­ cism. Although the Revolution recognizes that collective creations have been of little qualitative worth by tradi­ tional measures, it feels the advances made in bringing theatre to the masses plus theatre's social and political 23 impact have more than off-set this lack.

Despite the Revolution's emphasis on politically committed theatre, it is possible to see traditional, classical, avant-garde, puppet, children's, and collective theatre in Cuba from literally all over the world at any given time. However, the significant achievement of the

Revolution has been the development of national theatre and the support of national dramatists, whether professional or amateur. From 1959 to 19 70, some 392 Cuban plays were performed as compared with less than a handful from 1952 to 24 1958.

The latter half of the 1960s, as indicated above, saw a radical decline and even the disappearance of production among the dramatists of Arrufat's generation. This situ­ ation was brought about by conflicts over individual free­ dom and the permissible boundaries set by the Revolution.

The Revolution encouraged

neuvos postulados est^ticos y m€todos de trabajo que estuvieran mSs acordes con los grandes trans- formaciones sociopolfticas que se habian ido su- 159

cediendoen el pals . . . [lo que] determind que un buen ntimero de teatristas profesionales fijara otras actividades e inquietudes escenicas...25

It is, therefore, of little surprise that absurdist theatre fell on hard times by the mid-1960s and was criticized as geared to an elitist intellectual audience. Above, all, the social realist school considered it evasive and too negative within the Revolutionary context.

Anton Arrufat's Los siete contra Tebas was written in

1968 and received the Josd Antonio Ramos theatre award the same year. It was published by UNEAC under a disclaimer for its ideological content as being counter-Revolutionary.

The UNEAC "Declaracidn" mainly attacked Heberto Padilla's

Fuera del juego poetry anthology which had won the UNEAC poetry award, but it also strongly criticized Arrufat's drama. As Julio E. Miranda has noted, without the UNEAC prologue, the reader would consider the play rather an affirmation of the Revolution than a detraction, that is,

un hermoso canto a la revolucidn, una afirmacidn de la vida contra la muerte, de Cuba contra el imperialismo, pero hecho con los acentos doloridos de quien siente el sabor amargo de la sangre, de la separacidn entre compatriotas, de la cafda de los companeros.26

However, dissenting UNEAC committee members, Raquel

Revuelta and Juan Larco felt that the characterization of the Cuban people through the chorus as terror-filled and unwilling to fight for their country at the cost of fraticide was a misrepresentation of reality. They held 160

that the exiled Cubans conspiring with foreign sympathizers 27 against the Revolution were not "brothers" but "traitors."

Interestingly, 1968, the year the play was published, was

officially designated the "Ano del Guerrillero Heroico," a

fact which may have encouraged Arrufat to write about Cuban

heroism based on a Greek heroic tragedy, a point also noted 28 by Mat!as Montes-Huidobro.

The criticism unleashed against Padilla and Arrufat was to become the cause c£l&bre of 1971, when Padilla, after being detained by the Revolution for a series of "conver­ sations," recanted his accused negativism and individualism in a lengthy, world-publicized "confession," which provoked 29 the protest of the international intellectual community.

Immediate official criticism was promulgated by Leopoldo

Avila (supposedly Josd A. Portuondo), the hard-line and long-term critic of the vanguardist and experimentalist lit­ erary community who wrote articles attacking Arrufat and

Padilla in the armed forces journal Verde Olivo. This was to mark the turning from liberal tolerance of critical art toward an increasing government pressure for works primarily at the service of the Revolution.

Nineteen hundred and sixty-eight was not the first year

Arrufat and Cuban writers had come under the fire of the

Revolutionary critics. Prior to 19 59, Arrufat had been living in the United States. He returned to Cuba to par­ ticipate enthusiastically in the Revolution, and,to write 161 under the official support granted to all writers. He con­ tributed to the newly founded journals, Lunes de la Revolu- cidn and Casa de las Americas. In 1961, Lunes was closed and Arrufat was dismissed from his post as director of Casa de las Americas. Both acts resulted from the confronta­ tion between the intellectuals and writers on one hand and militant critics within the government on the other over the official condemnation of the movie P.M. The two groups met in the National Library where Fidel Castro uttered his famous "Palabras a los intelectuales" which proscribed the limits of artistic and literary freedom: "dentro de la

Revolucidn, todo; contra la Revolucidn, nada."

Arrafut's 196 3 article on the "Funci6n de la Critica

Literaria" defined his view of the critic's mission as one going beyond mere approbation or censorship to explication of the point of view and aims of a work, judging it for what it is and not for what it should be. He condemned the critical attitude that refuted works not written for the majority, asserting that political and social art written for the masses implied "escribir mal." The writer must be conscious of daily reality but aware of man's "don de la 30 sorpresa" and of his individual variety and complexity.

Such a literary theory plus his predominantly absurdist theatre could scarcely have endeared Arrufat to the pro­ ponents of social realism, whose ideology prevailed after

196 8 and who were responsible for labeling his one 16 2

nonabsurdist drama a counter-Revolutionary play.

There are three levels involved in an analysis of Los

siete contra Tebas. On the first level is the Aeschylan

prototype of which it is necessary to consider the basic

structural and thematic emphases. On the second level is

the Arrufat imitation whose structure and themes must also

be clearly investigated. By locating and relating differ­

ences and similarities between the first and second levels

one can begin to move to the third level which is that of

allegory. The comparative and contrastive process allows

those aspects to emerge which Arrufat deems important for

reworking and, therefore, chooses to emphasize. Once this

is accomplished, we can consider Los siete contra Tebas

for its political content and then its allegorical refer­

ence and correspondence to the Cuban political context. The

literal action of the classical tragedy reworked by Arrufat

points to an abstraction which is the Cuban Revolution. The

relationship between the second and third levels, the lit­

eral and the allegorical, reveals the political comment of

Arrufat's work.

The work centers on two major figures, Etdocles and

Polinice. This produces what James I. Wimsatt has called

"personification allegory," a form which is best adapted to

a "process of general importance," such as the "working of 31 a government." In Arrufat's allegory, Etdocles repre­

sents Fidel Castro and the forces of the Cuban Revolution, 163

Polinice points to the Cuban exiles and other enemies of the Revolution who return to retake Thebes (Cuba) through invasion (the Playa Gir6n and Bay of Pigs). The chorus symbolizes the Cuban people, fearful and uncertain of civil conflict and fratricide. The allegorical one-to-one cor­ respondence is most clearly seen, then, through these per­ sonifications, and, once clarified, permits us to consider the three levels outlined above as a means of analyzing the political value of Los siete contra Tebas.

Los siete contra Tebas follows the basic outlines of

Aeschylus' tragedy of the violent conflict between Oedipus' fated sons, Polinice and Eteocles. The Greek version re­ volves around the re-establishment of the Greek dike (right and order) in the fulfillment of the curse on three gener­ ations of the house of Laios. Laios was warned by Apollo not to beget offspring on pain of Thebe's destruction.

This was his punishment for the kidnapping and murder of the son of a friend. Laios defied the god and begat

Oedipus, who eventually killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus fathered Eteocles and Polinice, Antigone and Ismene. The two sons angered their father and pro­ voked his curse and that of the gods. Violence promoted violence and the sons ultimately murdered each other in battle when Polinice returned to Thebes to claim the 32 throne with the backing of a foreign army. 164

In the Arrufat version the brothers had agreed to take turns ruling their father's lands. Et^ocles, however, refused to relinquish his turn, thus driving Polinie into exile where he nurtured a hate-fed desire for revenge and repossession. Gathering a foreign army to his cause,

Polinice returned to his fatherland and laid siege to

Thebes.

Whereas defiance of the gods' decrees provokes the initial violence in the Greek prototype, it is the abroga­ tion of a political arrangement in Arrufat's drama which unleashes violence, war and tragedy. The change from a religious to a political focus sets Arrufat's drama apart as more than a mere contemporary reworking of the Greek play and places it within the Cuban Revolution.

There is unity of time, place and action in both plays, but it is in the development of the action where differences occur. Both plays comprise one long act which, for purposes of investigation, can be divided into four parts, each of several scenes' length. The first part explains the background action: the arrival of Polinice's invading forces and Et^ocles' entreaty to the Thebans to repulse them by first overcoming self-defeating fears and passive lament which serve only to demoralize the Theban armies. The second and third parts comprise the main dramatic action: the investiture of the Theban defenders to counter the invaders at the seven gates of the city and the 165 confrontation between Polinice and Et^ocles. The fourth and final part is the denouement: the choral narration of the actual battle and death of the brothers and the ques­ tion of the burial of their bodies.

A major structural difference between the two works deals with Polinice's role in the invasion, made known from the opening line of the Cuban play. Polinice appears on stage, which does not appear in the Greek version. The con­ frontation between Etdocles and Polinice provides the major dramatic interest and shifts the emphasis of the Greek play in which Aeschylus devoted major dramatic action to the choosing of the seven Thebans best able to repulse the seven attacking leaders. Aeschylus also devoted consider­ able stage action to the brothers' burial and the conflict it promoted for Antigone and Ismene in the denouement.

This conflict is absent from Arrufat's reworking where neither Antigone nor Ismene appears on stage. These major structural changes are evidence of Arrufat's dramatic in­ tention since he chooses through them to focus on the political conflict between brothers and not on the re­ ligious fate of the house of Laios.

In the first part of the Cuban drama, Et^ocles calls the Thebans to come to the defense of the city. On a personal level, he must steel himself against illusion and propaganda. He can then address the collective cause.

These elements are absent from the Greek model. Stress on 166 the collective repulsion of the invaders occurs in such phrases as "nuestra hora," "nuestra causa," "Para nosotros/ florece esta batalla y traza nuestro rostro en la his- toria," and "Que empiece el dia/en que seremos obra de 33 nuestras manos." This sense of history in the hands of the Thebans themselves and not in those of the gods is an important deviation from the Greek.

The male chorus members are sent to bring arms while

Et^ocles queries his own sacrifice, the pending violence against his own brother, and the spilling of family blood.

From this personal focus he turns again to the collectiv­ ity, vowing primary allegiance to the people's cause, that is, Thebes' salvation and autonomy.

The women of the chorus narrate the approach of the invading armies. They doubt and question who will save them. In their terror they turn to the gods as the clatter of martial weapons and shields grows louder. Throughout the Cuban version the chorus pantomimes and provides acoustic background to what it narrates in terms of off­ stage action. Descriptions of the men falling in battle on the plains, of the cries and the wind, and of Et^ocles' blood-stained and empty chariot ensue. For a third time the women cry "<»qui£n nos salvar^?/<;Quien acudir^ a nuestra suplica?' The same cry is made only once in the Aeschylan model. 167

Etdocles appears and upbraids the women for disheart­ ening the Thebans with their laments and pacifism. He exhorts the women to quell their terror lest their lack of unity cause destruction from within. If they must invoke the gods it should be to strengthen the Thebans in whom they should place their trust, and they are warned that the gods desert vanquished cities. All this follows the Greek model. Arrufat's Eteocles demands obedience to his sole command. He suggests that his and their power combined can do more than that of the gods. This also occurs in the

Greek. In both cases the women reply that the gods' power is greater, to which Etdocles cedes. In Arrufat's version, however, he urges them to back their prayers with active aid to the soldiers lest their passivity be the cause of their enslavement. Finally, Eteocles subdues their terror and they pledge unity, a second affirmation of the collec­ tive principle and of man's control of his destiny. Eteocles underlines this by proclaiming his intent to honor their dead "que supieron luchar para todos/renunciando un momento a la dicha privada." (40)

Eteocles exits and the women divide into two groups, reflecting their own dialectic between fear and courage.

It should be noted here that Polinice's name in Greek means

"full of strife," while Etdocles' has a double sense:

"justly famed" and "truly bewept" or "true cause of weep- 34 ing." Arrufat seems to have been aware of this when he 168 distinguished between the chorus' songs of war (strife) and songs of lament (weeping). This does not occur in the

Greek drama. The lamenters also posit a question not in the original: "dQu£ crimen cometimos? dQu£ liberatad perderemos?" (42) Arrufat repeats this twice.

The first section, then, deals with sacrifice, the call to unity for the common good— both on Etdocles1 per­ sonal level and on the Thebans' collective level. Behind this lies a double conflict between destiny and will and between the individual and the collectivity. These conflicts are central to the remainder of the tragedy. Fear and doubt are the obstacles to be overcome. Unified action and obedience to the leader are the solutions. The choral questions deal with the source of salvation and the cause of the Thebans' plight.

On the allegorical level, the analogy of Thebes threatened by foreign military and mercenary forces headed by a Theban with the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 is obvious. The Cuban version of Polinice returning to his fatherland as leader of the invasion is announced immedi­ ately in order to stress the role of the exile whose absence involves both a nation divided against itself and the presence of foreign allies associated with a disrupted social and political order. The Greek emphasis is not on the foreign presence but rather on a family divided inter­ nally and predestined to its self-destruction in the 169 re-establishment of a moral order dictated by the gods.

Brothers are divided but not a nation. The people in the

Cuban conflict are not victims to a situation beyond their control. Arrufat's reference is, of course, historical.

He refers to Cuba's struggle to overcome patterns of de­ pendence on the United States and United States control in

Cuba. The united Cuban people through collective action will exert their national will over former political and economic gods that have long suppressed them, and hence they will take charge of their own destiny. Neither the collective emphasis nor the stress on individual power to control one's destiny appears in the Greek version. It becomes clear that Arrufat uses the Greek model for pur­ poses of political allegory.

The role of the chorus as a vehicle to question the political environment comes into focus through the repeti­ tions and deviations from the original. Why do the Thebans suffer this invasion? What was the crime warranting this punishment? What is the freedom they will lose if Eteocles is defeated? Who will save them? The choral lines reflect a desire to be saved from the invaders and little else, or they may express a lack of confidence in Eteocles/Castro or in the Thebans/Cubans to save themselves. These re­ peated questions, in addition to heightening dramatic ten­ sion while evoking political questions, call to mind the

Cuban situation prior to the invasion when Cuba was 170

dependent on the United States. The choral lines may re­

flect the doubts of those still psychologically dependent

even when the Revolution has created independence. If this

is Arrufat's intention, then Et^ocles' solution follows

logically: salvation comes from one's own actions and

asserted independence. There is also the question of a

collective guilt for the impending civil war in which an

ambiguous freedom may be at stake. Arrufat's intent is

ambiguous due to the question structure, but his emphasis

is obvious through the repetitions. As these questions are posited at the beginning of the tragedy, it is likely that

at the very least Arrufat wants to direct audience atten­

tion to political questions and conflicts within the

Revolution.

The concept of the collectivity in the Cuban work

brings into play the early ideological polemic of the Cuban

Revolution: individual freedom versus collective equality.

It was between 1959 and 1961 that the nationalization of

foreign and Cuban-owned lands and enterprises occurred.

Indemnification was intended, so Castro did recognize that

individual rights had been breached and should be compen­

sated. This period also marked the fine line Castro walked between pressures for democratic socialism from the liberals

and for Marxist-Leninist socialism advocated by the radi­ cals and communists. Et^ocles is pulled by the desire to

avoid spilling his own family blood and by the desire to act 171 for the collective good. Arrufat carefully maintains the movement from the individual sacrifice to the collective sacrifice throughout the structure and themes of the drama.

It should be recalled that as early as 1957, when

Castro issued his manifesto in conjunction with opposition sectors calling for a revolutionary front and a provisional government selected by civil institutes, he backed away from shared selection of the president and control of the army. This occurred when his personal power grew as a result of the publication of New York Times correspondent 35 Herbert Matthews' interview with him m the Sierra. So

Et4ocles' demand for allegiance to a single command, a factor unique to Arrufat's play, does have Cuban historical precedent. In his first major speech in Havana in 1959,

Castro warned against internal division and fragmentation among revolutionary groups. Soon afterwards he affirmed:

I have always thought that the revolution should be made by one movement alone. Our thesis is that one group should not make a revolution, but the people. A small engine gets a bigger engine started.36

The small engine was to be the 26th of July Movement and

Castro its chief engineer. We will return to the idea of the single leader later.

The question of collective guilt for the invasion at

Playa Gir<5n and Playa Larga at the Bay of Pigs recalls the lines uttered by Castro in October 1959 when the question of communist drift within the Revolution came to a head 172 with the resignation of Humberto Matos, the military re­

gional commander of Camaguey province. Matos had protested

the communist influence within the Revolutionary Govern­ ment. Coincidental with Matos' protest was the dropping of pamphlets over Havana signed by the recently defected air force major, Diaz Lanz, that accused Castro of being a com­ munist. Castro attacked the overflights, bombings, and sabotage perpetrated in Florida by the exiled Cubans, to which he connected both the Diaz Lanz flight and the Matos resignation.37

cQud motivos tienen para atacar a Cuba? iQu£ crimen hemos cometido? cQue ha hecho el pueblo cubano para merecer estos ataques?38

The Thebans ask why they are being invaded. Castro asked the same question here and again in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs. Aeschylus' earlier line about defeat coming from within Thebes, which Arrufat also uses, takes on an added dimension when realted to these questions or guilt and the loss of freedom, questions also at the heart of the Matos affair. Whether Arrufat consciously makes these references and connections is debatable, but the three year period specifically cited in the play at the core of the conten­ tion between Et^ocles and Polinice does include within

Cuban history these outstanding incidents and conflicts.

In the second section of Los siete contra Tebas the seven military leaders of Thebes are matched with the seven attacking commanders of the invading forces. The names of 173

all participants are identical in both plays and the

shields with their devices are basically the same. How­

ever, the matching process is greatly diminished in the

Cuban work with no emphasis placed at all on the defenders'

shields. Arrufat also has four Theban defenders appear on

stage to converse with the chorus. Aeschylus did not do

this. Arrufat effects the change in order to characterize

the role of the people who make up the armed forces in

times of threat but who in peacetime may follow other pro­

fessions. Hence, Hiperbio represents education, Megareo

the cultivator of the soil, Lcistenes the youth of Cuba, and

Polionte the military.

The Theban scouts or spies enter with news of the seven attackers. They describe the attackers and their shields, which depict various threats. Tideo represents ignorance through night's darkness. Hipomedronte symbol­ izes lust, primarily for land but also for slaves and material possessions. Capaneo is the purist or ideologue whose fire of true knowledge will purportedly cleanse the city of its impurities. As in the Greek version, Ecleo may represent Et^ocles inside the walls; his horses are curelly yoked to his chariot which the chorus interpret as a premonition of his treatment of Thebes. The city would become "despojada y estdril, oyendo resonar sin tregua las lenguas del odio." (59) Anfiarao, the fifth contender, fights only to find his identity in death and in the deaths 174 he will cause. For the naming of the sixth contender,

Partenopeo, the spies and chorus engage in a descriptive narration of his fighting and the ravages of his war.

Their exchange supplies dramatic relief to the prior list of invading warriors and focuses special attention on this figure. While the spies describe the strength of his arms and the horrors these inflict, the chorus describes the terror and uncertainty of his victims.

Tension builds against the background of the sounds of war. As the last Theban defender leaves to counter

Partenopeo, silence suddenly falls and the spies leave to seek the cause. Et£ocles detains them, however, until they name the seventh invader and describe him. It is Polinice.

Et^ocles confonts the impending fate by asking what fault in him has brought this tragedy to pass. Once more the sense of guilt for civil war is given voice, this time on the individual level of the leader. We are reminded again of Castro's words (see page 171 above). The spies describe

Polinice's approach and his invocation of their father's gods, a reference, no doubt, to the values of traditional society if one recalls Et^ocles' entreaty to the masses to place action and self-reliance above the gods. The device on Polinice's shield depicts a woman, dike (right or jus­ tice and order), leading a warrior dressed in gold armour to whom she promises the return of his land and his father's inheritance. The chorus marks the transition to the third 175

part of the play by commenting in wonder on the foreboding

silence that suddenly descends upon the city.

Each of the four Theban defenders selected for special

appearance can allegorically represent an important sector within the Revolution associated with its major reforms

from 1959 to 1961. One notes that 1959 was officially the

Year of Liberation, 1960 was the Year of Agrarian Reform, 39 and 1961 the Year of Education.

Polionte, the first defender to appear, represents the military sector of the Revolution. In January 1959, the army was reorganized and loyal guerrilla members from the

Rebel Army of the Sierra were placed in charge of the . . 40 provincial military governments. The militia was formed under the direction of the army and comprised some 150,000 men and women by 1961, whose omnipresence throughout the island presented

una vuelta a la antigua creencia nacional de que un ej^rcito regular no tenfa sentido, pues todo el mundo podfa empunar un rifle o un machete para defender sus derechos.^l

Megareo represents perhaps the most important reform under the early Revolutionary Government, the Agrarian

Reform Act, promised for decades and realized in 1959. It was the first concrete change in the traditional socio­ economic structure of Cuban society. Cuban Cabinet mem­ bers resigned over the issue. It was also protested offi­ cially by the United States, fearful that expropriation 176 would not be followed by prompt indemnification. The re­

form initiated a United States campaign to identify Cuba ... • 42 with communism.

Hiperbio, symbolizing the teachers, refers to the tre­ mendous Revolutionary push to eradicate illiteracy and provide universal access to education by sending teaching brigades into the countryside, by constructing 3,000 new schools in 1959, and by nationalizing all private schools in 1961. Reforms were initiated from primary through uni­ versity level education. Art and culture were assiduously supported and made available to the masses as part of the educational reforms.

L^stenes, the youth, represents the incorporation of the young into the economically and culturally productive sectors of society. Education reforms were responsible for sending over 100,000 volunteer students and workers to live with and teach rural families. This had the multiple im­ pact of providing education, establishing links between urban and rural areas and between agricultural and indus­ trial sectors, and inculcating a work ethic. Rolland G.

Paulston sees Castro's belief in work as youth's greatest teacher reflected in the Cuban educational system where

"youth's moral and ideological formation flows out of their participation in socially valuable work," where physical labor is dignified, and where social and national responsi- 43 bility are encouraged. Ill

With these four sectors standing out in the second

section of Arrufat's drama, attention is called histori­

cally to the radical changes begun from 1959 to 1961 by

Castro's government. Their effects were instant in the

consequent alienation of supporters of traditional Cuban

society who had the most to lose by such changes, that is,

the Cuban upper-class elites and middle-class sectors.

The seven attackers symbolize, of course, the invading

forces at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. Several of the attackers may be invested with specific historical refer­ ence by Arrufat. For example, Hipomedronte, who attacks for land, men, and possessions, could easily represent those returning exiles anxious to restore their former wealth and position and the socioeconomic status quo. Both

Capaneo and Partenopeo also stand out, the former by being associated with excessive purity and the latter by being dramatically presented by the spies and chorus. Neither emphasis occurs in the Greek drama. Hecht and Bacon define the torch of Capaneo in the Greek version as light and knowledge that have been "perverted into a destructive 44 weapon."

In his attack on Arrufat, Leopoldo Avila singled out

Capaneo as representative of the dramatist's counter- 45 Revolutionary views. The following lines describing

Capaneo fueled Avila's attack: 178

jParezca quien divide a los hombres en puros e impuros! Y orgulloso de su pureza derrama sangre, invade la ciudad e inicia la per- secucidn. (57-58)

These lines do not appear in Aeschylus' tragedy and could be construed as directed against the hard-line, Marxist-

Leninist elements in Cuba conceived as the enemy within, whether by Arrufat himself or by the liberal democratic elements to whom he may be referring. Avila does not elaborate his criticism, but his calling attention to the chorus' lines reveals an acute sensitivity to the possible attack by Arrufat. Again, the case of Humberto Matos dealt with this ideological schism in Cuba at the time in which the play is set.

The dramatic description Arrufat lends to the figure of Partenopeo in proportion to that devoted to the others indicates a specific political criticism and is probably a reference to Cuba's historical relationship with the United

States. The descriptions of Partenopeo's shield are of a bird of prey with its talons open and poised for kill, a description which differs from the Greek shield portraying the Sphinx. This change in the shield device could be an effort on Arrufat's part to symbolize the American mercen­ aries through the American eagle, national symbol of the

United States. Partenopeo is portrayed as a pitiless subjugator of men known for his savage warfare and rapacious intent backed by incredible strength of arms. It was the 179

lack of promised United States military air support which was responsible in large part for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Polinice's shield device of dike leading a golden warrior back to his homeland is the obvious representation of the goal of the exiles: the re-establishment of tradi­ tional pre-Revolutionary society and the return of private land and material wealth. The device underscores the im­ portance of land and possessions and the concept of indi­ vidual justice. The formal introduction of justice and order is a harbinger of the main theme of the third section.

That Arrufat brings Polinice onto the stage in the third part and stresses his protectress symbol as order and justice places the brothers on the equal footing rejected by the UNEAC critics. This equality and the appearance of dike on Polinice's shield is equally forceful in the Greek version. The difference lies in Polinice's presence and in the fact that the major dramatic focus falls on the staged confrontation. In the original,Polinice comes not to kill Et^ocles nor solely to be king of Thebes; he comes to cast his brother into the exile he has suffered.

Arrufat's Polinice proposes a truce, to be allowed to have his turn in power as previously contracted with Etdocles or else to die if necessary fighting for his rightful place.

The ensuing polemic revolves around six major points: 180

1) Polinice's legal claim to the government of Thebes;

2) Polinice's exile;

3) Polinice's accusation that Eteocles has placed himself above Thebans and above justice;

4) Eteocles' condemnation of Polinice as a traitor whose claim is unjust because it is based on the might of foreign assassins and mercenaries;

5) Eteocles' admission and justification of his abrogation of the pact for the collective good; and

6) Eteocles' criticisms of the injustices suffered under Polinice's former rule.

Polinice represents the individual perspective and

Etecoles champions the collective perspective. Here are the roots of the capitalist-socialist conflict, of individual liberty versus collective equality, the bases of the claim that Eteocles represents Castro and the Cuban Revolution and that Polinice represents the Cuban counter-Revolutionary in exile.

Polinice initially demands that his brother abandon

Thebes rather than suffer the ignominy of certain defeat by a military force that will easily conquer the Theban/Cuban

"pueblo descalzo, que empuna viejas lanzas y escudos podridos." (70) Eteocles counters that despite their poverty and "locura," the people will not surrender, and he reminds his borther that "Tebas ya no es la misma;/ nuestra locura/ algo funda en el mundo." (71) This refers, it seems, to the newly emerging, autonomous and classless society that the Revolution would come to embody and 181

actively espouse after the defeat of the invasion. At the

time of the Bay of Pigs, the Revolution's Marxist-Leninist

direction had not been clearly defined; such direction fol­

lowed instantly, however, on the heels of the thwarted

invation.

Finally Polinice brings up the pact made three years

prior (1959 according to the 1961 date of the Bay if Pigs

invasion), but first a brief interchange between the

brothers evokes their common past and presents Polinice's

accusation that his brother is no longer the same person as

before. Thebes has changed and so has its hero. The fol­

lowing lines sum up Polinice's basic accusations:

...... Recuerdo el pacto que hicimos hace tres anos, y recuerdo que tti lo has destruido. Pactd contigo gobernar un ano cada uno, compartir el mando del ej^rcito y la casa paterna. Juraste cumplirlo. Y has roto el juramento y tu promesa. S<51o gobiernas, s<51o decides, s6lo habitas la casa de mi padre. (74)

Eteocles' reply contains the crux of his arguments:

Rectifiqu^ los errores de tu gobierno, repartl el pan, me acerqu£ a los pobres. Sf, es cierto, saque£ nuestra casa. Nada podrds encontrar en ella. Reparti nuestros bienes, reparti nuestra herencia,

Si, es cierto, profan£ un juramento. Pero no me importa. Acepto esa impureza, pero no la injusticia. (75)

Polinice, scorning order and justice based on disorder

and injustice, says he will never forgive Eteocles for 182

sacking their home and dividing his posessions with others:

"Mis cosas estcin en manos ajenas y desconocidas." (75) His

reference emphasizes material possessions, his individual

right to them, and his defense of the former class system

that protected them under capitalism. Polinice does not

accept the greater good as justification for Eteocles' in­

justice, preferring always to see Eteocles as the corrupt

politician and self-styled hero:

Eres el h£roe que el pueblo salv6 con un gesto firme. No es la primera vez, Hubo una noche en que estabas tan seguro como ahora. (70)

I believe the reference above is to the 26th of July attack on Moncada in 1953.

The accusation of dictator is repeated over and over

by Polinice, and Eteocles remains equally consistent and

single-minded in his self-defense. Polinice accuses

Eteocles of considering all those who oppose him as

assassins and self-servers, of placing himself above jus­ tice: "Para ti la justicia se llama Eteocles./Eteocles la patria y el bien" (76); and justice is a major point of contention between the brothers:

Sdlo tu sabes, Eteocles. S61o tti sabes. Tu decides lo que estci bien o mal. Repartes la justicia, mides el valor de los hombres. IS61o t(i eres libre en Tebas! (78)

Eteocles responds to the call for justice with the call for

collective justice, which is at the heart of his govern­ ment : 183

Si es necesario, sabr6 mancharme las manos. Para ser justos es necesario ser injusto un momento (76)...... Si fui injusto contigo, he sido justo con los demds. No acepto tu pureza, Polinice. Tu erecho estci contaminado por los hombres que te secundan. (76)

There is very little room here for doubt about the refer­ ences to capitalism backed by foreign power and Castro's socialist state.

The two Thebans reach a mutually recognized impasse and part to entrust to the sword the decision words cannot achieve. Etdocles vows that "la obra de todos no serci destruida por un hombre solo." (80) But Eteocles does not have the last word. This falls to the people— to the chorus— who recognize the validity of Polinice's claim that

Eteocles is arrogant: "Ser£s como 61, victima de la soberbia! . . . Recuerda que hay otros hombres en el mundo."

(81) Thus, the charge of pride and arrogance is leveled at both Castro and the exiled Cuban. Almost at the end of the play, the chorus will return to this statement as it la­ ments the fratricide and judges the brothers as "tercos, tercos, tercos." (101) Again, we see Arrufat repeating for emphasis. In the Greek version, the chorus emphasizes violence and not pride, hate and not arrogance.

What is the cause of this tragedy which is the spilling of the same blood? Is it a conflict between political sys­ tems, the one proposing a collective society and the other a system of individual opportunity and ownership? Is it

Eteocles' excessive pride, his hubris, which prevents co­

operation, or is it Polinice's alliance with foreign

powers? Arrufat carefully posits both levels of criticism

and leaves it somewhat ambiguous whether the Revolution is

betrayed internally or externally or both. In a long speech

at the end of this section, Eteocles denies his own self-

interest and individual future, and thus Arrufat counters

the charge of pride. It is not his brother whom Eteocles

fights but his historical compatriot who has been part of

him but who is necessary to sacrifice, to exorcize: "No

avanzo contra 61,/. . . sino contra ml mismo:/ contra esa parte de Etdocles que se llama Polinice." (83) In his final

scene on stage Et6ocles denies the old order, the old gods,

the individual tied to self-interest and the family to the exclusion of the national good, the attempt to reverse the new society and return to the old. "Implantar la justicia es un hecho aspero/ y triste, acarrea la crueldad y la violencia. Pero es necesario." (84)

According to the pact between the brothers, the gov­ ernment of Thebes and the control of the army was to be shared. We recall the 1957 Sierra Maestra manifesto which

Castro abrogated specifically in these two realms, assuming to his unilateral power the naming of the new provisional president and the reorganizing of the military. That manifesto also called for adherence to the liberal 185 democratic Constitution of 1940 and for general elections within a year.

Under Cuba's Revolutionary Government, Castro estab­ lished a government that promoted concepts of democracy, 46 nationalism and social justice. Castro was Prime Minister and head of the Rebel Army. The reference in the play to the pact made three years prior could not chronologically refer to the Sierra Manifesto, but it could refer to

Castro's initial government in 1959 which planned elections within a year. The period of the play becomes that of

Castro's government when the liberal democratic elements still held key positions and access to Castro's inner cir­ cle prior to the defection of Diaz Lanz to the United

States, the condemnation of communism and of the PSP by provisional president Manuel Urrutia, and the Humberto

Matos resignation.

By October 19 59, Castro began to talk of elections within four years, not one, and said he would resign if public opinion turned against him. It was obvious that elections were unnecessary to maintain Castro in control, since he continued to count on overwhelming Cuban support.

Scheer and Zeitlin, ardent defenders of Castro and critics of United States policy toward the new regime, sought to explain the move away from "shared" government through general elections: 186

Nothing could more alienate Cuban leaders from U.S. conceptions of representative democracy than the knowledge that we were trying to crush their revolution in the name of democracy. Perhaps as a result of this— and the Cuban history of sham democracy before the revolution— the revolutionary leaders began to conceive of elections as a means of thwarting and frustrat­ ing the popular will, rather than expressing it. They began to think in terms of 'direct democracy' — an intimate association of government and people not based on specific political institutions— as a more genuine form of democratic government.47

Polinice's point that he had been excluded from the power structure of Thebes was a reflection on Castro's con­ sistent emasculation of the traditional power structure.

Castro had entered a political vacuum resulting from tra­ ditional dependence on United States sanction of Cuban governments that for decades had proscribed alternate ideological directions and controls within Cuban political organizations. Castro's economic reforms and nationaliza­ tion policies had ended traditional avenues to economic power enjoyed by the Cuban upper and middle classes.

Eteocles admits this usurpation but justifies it on the grounds of equitable sharing of national wealth. Certainly private lands and possessions had been seized and distrib­ uted to "manos ajenas." Under Castro's regime, national wealth is not the prerogative of individuals and elites but an exigency of the masses. The products of the land and the industry of Cuba are to be owned and run by and for the people (Megareo, Hiperbio, Polifontes and LSstenes), not by elite nationals and foreigners (Partenopeo, Capaneo, 187

Hipomedronte). Arrufat may be singling out these last

three names in the debate between the two brothers in order

to characterize the conflict over the socialist direction of the early Cuban government.

In October 1959, Castro appointed his brother, Raul,

head of the armed forces, a move which provoked Humberto

Matos' resignation and that of fourteen other army officers.

In his letter of resignation to Castro, Matos wrote:

S61o puedo concebir el triunfo de la Revolucidn si la naci6n estd unida. Creo conveniente recor- darte que los grandes hombres empiezan a decaer cuando dejan de ser justos . . . te pido, hablando no como comandante Matos, sino sencillamente como una de tus camaradas de la Sierra— £te acuerdas?— , como uno de los que salieron dispuestos a morir para cumplir tus ordenes, que accedas a mi peticidn . . . permitidndome volver a casa como un paisano, sin que mis hijos tengan que oir despuds por la calle que su padre es un traidor o un desertor.4 8

In the Cuban play, Polinice had recalled to Etdocles their shared youth, and Etdocles had remembered Polinice had saved his life in a hunting accident. It is immedi­ ately after this that Polinice accuses Etdocles of calling all who oppose him assassins (see page 182 above). Matos wrote a second time to Castro, to deny the charge that he had accused Castro of being a communist as Diaz Lanz had done. In his letter he stated that

es preferible morir antes que volver la espalda a los valores que animan la causa de la verdad, la razdn y la justicia. . .49

The question of justice is apparent. That Matos was accused and arrested as a traitor to the Revolution within 188

Cuba has given Scheer and Zeitlin the argument that by this time violent opposition to the Agrarian Reform Act in the name of anti-communism had had such an impact on the revo­ lutionary leaders that they were now convinced that "anti­ communism was a guise for attacking the revolution," and it was inevitable that Matos would fall victim to this backlash.

We cannot be certain that Arrufat was making an analogy between Polinice and Matos, investing Polinice with the double counter-Revolutionary role of exile and of internal dissenter. However, it is of interest to note that the major accusations of Polinice do have historical precedents with the Matos case and do coincide with the historical period in the play to which Polinice refers. Certainly we can say that Arrufat accurately captures the climate and nature of the conflicts and the criticism besetting Castro and the Revolution between 1959 and 1961.

Evidence for the so-called communist drift of the

Revolution has been the topic of much of the scholarly investigation of Castro and his developing ideology. That

Castro's early position was ambiguous and lacked consoli­ dation appears evident. He had visited the United States, repeatedly denied communist involvement in the Revolution and openly attacked the PSP. In fact, the PSP had early condemned Castro's rebel tactics and remained very much on the outside of the ruling hierarchy during the period 189

1959-1961. Castro took the direction of the army away from

the Marxist Che Guevara (However, he soon placed it in the

hands of Raul Castro, who did participate in the PSP.) and

did not intervene when the PSP candidates were excluded

from the delegations of the major sugar union. ^ The de­

creased rent rates, the radical Agrarian Reform Act, the

increasing acts of nationalization of both Cuban and foreign

lands and enterprises had also solicited dissent from vari­

ous sectors within the Revolution. Liberals and moderates were disquieted by the Matos affair and many soon lost

their leadership positions under the Revolution or resigned.

Some left Cuba, others remained but stayed out of power.

Hugh Thomas sees the consequences of the Matos affair as

the "desaparicidn del ala liberal de la revolucion, de los

reformadores genuinos que tambi£n eran respetados en Wash- 52 mgton." The tendency of the exiles and certain sectors within Cuba (i.e., Matos) and within the United States

Government to separate Cubans into communists (Revolution­ aries) and anti-communists (counter-Revolutionaries) and

to provoke internal conflict on this ideological question

in black and white terms gives force to Arrufat's charac­ terization of Capaneo as a "purist."

Polinice accuses Etdocles of using "la mascara que los demcis esperan y en el momento preciso." (69) The ambiguity of Castro's ideological position was undeniable. During the period referred to in Arrufat's Los siete contra Tebas, 190

Castro condemned Matos for his anti-communism, dismissed

Urrutia on the same grounds, appointed a former communist,

Ddrticos, as new president, and still was able to assure his liberal and moderate supporters he was anti-communist.

"Todos lograron confiar en Castro. Creyeron que era el

Srbitro, porgue decia cosas diferentes a las diferentes ,.53 personas."

All scholars and critics of Castro's Revolution refer to the centralization of power in Castro's hands at the head of the army and the Partido Communista Cubano (PCC), to his charisma, and to his political acuity. Farber recalls Castro's formula for a truly integrated civil move­ ment— "ideology, discipline and chieftanship"— and Castro's comment that

A movement cannot be organized where everyone be­ lieves he has a right to issue public statements without consulting anyone else; nor can one expect anything of a movement that will be integrated by anarchic men who at the first disagreement take the path they consider most convenient, tearing apart and destroying the vehicle.54

Farber also cites C. Wright Mills who said of Castro that he

"was the revolution" and concurs that the "only real polit- 55 ical structure was Fidel Castro himself."

In the final section of Los siete contra Tebas, as

Eteocles leaves the stage, Arrufat has the chorus enact its terror, personified as a monstrous beast. Their enactment flows quickly and tensely, contrasting with the verbal arguments of the prior scene. The description is unified 191 by the repeated word "terror" and by sentences constructed of paralleling series of words referring to the body, first with nouns, then with adjectives, and finally with active verbs. The conflict of will and fate is revived and the chorus is left at once free and bound

en un juego que ya se ha jugado, dados que ruedan hace tiempo en una mesa de otra casa y de otro dueno. IPobre voluntad luchando en la sombra! (86)

The line refers to the two brothers caught individually in an historical destiny. The chorus describes the two Cubans at war and their fratricide: "ojos cegados/ por una sola emocidn, por una idea sola." (86) They ponder the outcome and return to the early lines of the play that frame the question of guilt for this war:

£Pero donde estci la culpa?

Manos sombrias nos buscan, manos detrds del botin, del poder, sonando reinar sobre los hombres. Oh locura, cuando terminard tu aguj6n. (88)

The focus moves from the motives of the war to its consequences, mainly the loss of families, of the sons who did not come back from Troy, from Africa, from Asia. By naming these other regions of civil strife, Arrufat univer salizes the lament. The chorus finds itself guilty for allowing its sons to go to war and names the seven de­ fenders of Thebes. At this juncture the spies return with 192

the news of Thebes salvation and the death of the two

brothers, which the chorus enacts. Polinice fought

against his brother's ambition and in revenge for his

exile, and Eteocles fought Polinice for attacking their

fatherland and for failing to understand collective jus­

tice. The people are joyful over the victory but anguished over the deaths.

The chorus judges: "Quisimos una obra que nos/ uniera

con lazos iguales,/ y Polinice los cortb con la sangre y el hierro!" (101) They ask but do not answer if Polinice is worthy of their mourning, if his exile was just cause, if his death is capable of exhonorating his crime. The two bodies are brought onto the stage and the journey of a funeral barge is patomimed while the chorus continues its judgment. Polinice's body has not been washed and dressed for burial for he was the enemy willing to turn his nation over to foreign power and ambition. But Eteocles, defender of Thebes, will be honored and mourned by his people whose land has been "purified" and "freed" by his defense. Each brother has received his allotted inheritance due by his will and his destiny; the rich land will entomb their remains.

The Cuban version of Los siete contra Tebas ends on a note of hope as the Thebans look forward to spring and regeneration of their land and their unity. Unlike the

Greek chorus and actors, the Cuban chorus permits the 193

burial of Polinice in order to show him the compassion he

did not show to Thebes. Their final judgment firmly sides

with Eteocles and provides a strong counterweight to the

arguments of critics such as Leopoldo Avila.

Adi<5s, Eteocles. No podemos censurarte: tu obra estci en nosotros. Sabremos continuar esa justicia que no se arrepiente ni claudica. Por ti reinarl un orden nuevo, mientras tu suenas. Por eso podremos manana comer el cordero. (105)

The final scenes of Los siete contra Tebas convey the

people's lament over the civil strife through which Arrufut

imparts guilt to two stubborn positions that caused so much

bloodshed. Yet the people express their support for col­

lective justice, for unity— hardly a condemnation of Castro

but rather an accolade for the ends to which he worked. If

the criticism comes, it is in questioning the means. Matias

Montes-Huidobro saw possible condemnation of the work pre­

cisely in its presentation of the hero Et^ocles/Castro as

C C a man of flesh and blood who could suffer human faults.

Whereas the Greek chorus laments the deaths, there is

no accusation of pride and stubbornness, no condemnation

or judgment. The choral role is relegated to historical

explanation of the curse on the house of Laios and to com­ ment on the fraternal blood spilled in hate, due first to

the Curses and secondly to the political war. The Greek

chorus does not place emphasis on the city cleft by tragedy

nor on the struggle for land over which the tragedy oc­

curred, although the land is mentioned. The final judgment 194 falls, rather, to the Theban magistrates, who send a mes­ senger on their behalf, to issuecthe decree for Etdocles' honorable burial and to forbid tBfe burial of Polinice who has dishonored Thebe's gods byvitoeinging outside forces to usurp them. The context of the Sdreek civil judgment is tu closely linked to the gods. Eveni so, the Greek chorus also divides over the burial of Polinice, and half helps Ismene with Eteocles and half helps Antlljone with Polinice, in spite of the decree. When the chbrus decides early in the play to heed Etdocles and cease its laments, and when it decides here to bury Polinice, ithmanifests its only non- descriptive function in the Greekedrama.

This contrasts sharply with=5 Arrufat' s use of the chorus, which not only narrates^off-stage action, comments on on-stage action, and provides for technical transition between scenes, as in the Greek_i.prototype, but which also assumes the position of judge andcanalyst. Hence, it takes on a magnitude which places it oaflilectively on the level of a protagonist, such as Eteocles aoad Polinice. Arrufat here seems to reflect the role of the Cuban people as predom­ inant in their society. Additionally, the defenders are not a separate military cadre, bat of the people— of the chorus— and they too are given special dramatic moment by

Arrufat. The final judgment of the Revolution will rest with the Cuban people who will decide its outcome.

eel, 195

The structural changes made by Ant6n Arrufat in

Aeschylus' drama are the bringing of Polinice onto the stage, the diminuition of importance and of length of the scenes where the warring leaders are armed and matched, the augmentation of the roles of Eteocles and the chorus, the dislocation of dramatic focus to the staged confrontation between Polinice and Etdocles, and the elimination of the roles of Ismene and Antigone. The content or thematic changes are the elimination of the curse of Laios and the virtual elimination of the role of the gods, the inclusion of political conflict as the major source of the fratricide and axis of the drama, and the questioning of guilt and justice associated with the collective will and the indi­ vidual freedom and right to land and property.

What Arrufat does is to rework a classical Greek drama to describe the conflicts of Castro's Revolution during the period of 1959 to 1961. The ancient Greek play becomes a political allegory of contemporary Cuban history. The textual deviations of the Cuban play can be interpreted as allusions to specific political conflicts and events within those three years.

Although Polinice is the obvious symbol of the Cuban exile spearheading the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the content of many of his lines evokes the polemic over capitalism and socialism at the heart of the

Humberto Matos affair in 1959. 196

The attack that Arrufat is ambiguous in his criticism and straddles the fence rather than explicitly refute the criticisms he raises could be interpreted as without foundation if the play is considered as a reflection of the historical period of 1959-1961, which was characterized precisely by ambiguities and contradictions inherent in a political movement of radical intent begun in an ideological and organizational vacuum. Evidence in support of this theory may be found in a 1963 roundtable discussion with other Cuban playwrights, five years prior to writing Los siete contra Tebas, when Arrufat made some interesting com­ ments that may shed light on the ambiguous elements of his tragedy and also on his focus on the importance of the

Cuban people within his later play. He noted the fact that

Greek tragedians wrote within an already consolidated social structure and from within an already established dramatic tradition, unlike the Cuban playwrights of the

Revolution. He went on to address the question of Cuban writers reflecting the Revolution in their future works:

Eso no depende . . . de lo que hagamos sino de lo que haga el pueblo, de lo que haga la gente, y como la gente viva, y como nosotros estemos necesitados entonces de reflejar esa vida. Yo creo que si vamos viviendo todos dentro del socialismo, iremos como autores lentamente haciendo una obra socialists, es decir, una obra que refleje el socialismo.

Arrufat foresaw the past culture of the pre-Revolutionary bourgeois society as necessarily continuing into the 197

Revolution since culture does not cease overnight but is an on-going, historically evolving process.

En todas nuestras obras hasta el momento presente, est3 presente, de un modo evidente o menos evidente, la crisis con el mundo burgu^s que empieza a terminar.58

Hence, Los siete contra Tebas may be viewed as directly reflective of the reality of a society in flux, torn between past tradition and present radical innovation and as yet in ambiguous, protean form.

However, Arrufat does directly describe and critize

Cuba's political dependence on the United States and on a capitalist system, attack internal fragmentation of Cuban politics and classes and the elitism of the traditional economic and social system which excluded vast sectors of

Cuban society from access and enjoyment of national wealth.

He describes the establishment of order and civil justice under the Cuban Revolution. He changes the Greek focus from man against fate to man against history, from religious order to political order, from the individual to the collectivity. The role of the collectivity is structurally and thematically conveyed by Arrufat's handling of the chorus and the Theban defenders who are no longer just dramatic vehicles but dramatic political expressions in their own right.

The political content of Arrufat's play derives from historical analogy to the events leading up to and including 198

the invasion of United States-supported Cuban exile forces

at the Bay of Pigs. Thus, Los siete contra Tebas is the

first Cuban political drama to deal with the Cuban Revolu­ tion directly. Rather than political propaganda or a counter-Revolutionary indictment of that Revolution and its leader, the play appears more a descriptive, historical dramatization of a political event of a society in radical transition and, therefore, in conflict. CHAPTER III

CHILE

Los que van quedando en el camino by Isidora Aguirre was first presented to workers in the countryside and

provinces outside Santiago, Chile, and opened in the capi­

tal in the fall of 1969.^ Termed by Aguirre "un realismo

creativo," the drama is based on an historical event in * Chilean agarian history. On the occasion of the produc­

tion of her play Los papeleros in 1963, Isidora Aguirre had spoken with Pablo Neruda about popular revolutionary theatre and asked him if he had any ideas for a theme for a peasant drama she had interest in writing. Neruda told her the name and story of Chacdn Corona, a victim of the

Lonquimay massacres of 19 34; he later put her into direct contact with the massacre survivors who gave her the theme 2 which she had been seeking. The play was developed after

Aguirre's 1964 visit to Cuba, her ensuing studies of Lenin and Brecht, and four years of careful and intensive

* The play appears to be a documentary drama due to its techniques of factual narrations and direct audience address. However, the use of professional actors keeps the drama from being documentary theatre in the pure sense of the term. The play best falls under the rubric of epic realism. 199 200 research and interviews of the peasants surviving the

Ranquil and Lonquimay massacres.

After setting aside her topic for fear of producing a local color testimonial in complete isolation from her

Chilean present, Aguirre returned to the historical revolt upon realizing that

era una insurreccidn que correspondla a todos estos lavantamientos latinoamericanos. Entonces, por esto escribf la obra. 0 sea, que yo tenia que relacionarla luego con este sentido que tiene la insurrecci6n campesina del Tercer Mundo, dentro de America Latina— porque van a una insurreccidn— no estci perdido. Por eso la obra se dice "Los que van quedando en el camino", que el titulo es una frase de Che, que dice que de los que no entendieron bien, de los que murieron sin ver la aurora, de los que van quedando en el camino tambi^n se hizo la Revolucidn. . . . Ese serfa un poco a grosso modo el sentido de la obra, es decir, recoger esta hazafla de los muertos y entregarla a los vivos para reforzar su necesidad de insurreccidn, de justicia.3

In an interview with Rine Lean in Conjunto, Aguirre stated her awareness of theatre as a vehicle for both political and aesthetic effect:

Naturalmente, si uno lleva los hechos en forma de relato, queda un relato. Uno tiene que darle un tratamiento din&mico. . . . Creo que el teatro en este momento (1969) es muy importante, porque la gente estci un poco cansada de oir lo mismo, las mismas palabras en el lenguaje politico. En­ tonces, si uno expresa esa misma idea en este momento prerevolucionario con un lenguaje teatral, creo que es mcLs efectivo. Por eso yo sentia una gran responsabilidad con esta obra.^

That sense of responsibility and political goal brought forth the play to be discussed in this chapter, an example of the Brechtian dramatic technique adapted to a political 201

comment on Chile's agrarian past and present with major

emphasis falling on the past rebellions of Ranquil and

Lonquimay. The present moment was that of the 1960s, whose

climate has been characterized by Eugenio GuzmcLn, the pro­

ducer of the work's Santiago debut:

. . . es una obra ascetica, una obra dura, una obra que plantea un caso sangriento, casi olvidado— porque las fuerzas represivas han hecho siempre su acci6n de matar y de ultimar para muy pronto en el camino, a los 4 o 5 d£as, hacerlo sepultar en el olvido— , nosotros estamos resucitando hechos sangrientos que siguen aconteciendo en nuestro pals. Hechos sangrientos que aun dentro de la democracia burguesa en que nosotros vivimos— que tiene una mayor liberalidad que las dicta- duras de derecha de otros pueblos en Latinoamd- rica— siguen de todas maneras sirviendo para las mismas formas de explotacidn, para las mismas formas de desnutricidn, de analfabetismo en la masa campesina.5

The bloody facts of Ranquil and the history that is com­

mented on in the play can be summarized briefly as follows.

The facts are based primarily on the Almino Affonso study

cited below.

Problems of the Alto Bio-Bio region in southern Chile

arose over legitimate titles to the lands. The lati-

fundistas sought to gain the disputed lands through the

Ley de la Propiedad Austral. In the process, they suc­

cessfully displaced from these lands some 150 campesinos, whom they relocated to the fundo of Ranquil, the poorest

agriculturally of all the communal lands under title 202 * question in that region. The campesino occupants of the nearby lands of Guayali were also to be displaced to the region adjacent to Ranquil. However, they believed that their original location comprised state lands soon to be allotted to them as promised in a recent government politi­ cal campaign. So, they stopped working for their patrones and claimed squatters' rights to the lands. Backed by the local militia, the patrones burned down the inquilino homes and physically transported the inquilinos to the regions near Ranquil where the meager harvests had failed, the pan­ ning of gold had been exhausted, and a brutal winter faced the peasants quartered in inferior housing scarcely adapted to the severe climatic conditions. The Guayali peasants were left on the highways near Ranquilwith no food or shelter.

The displaced peasants began to mobilize under the direc­ tion of local leaders— Juan Leiva and the Sagredo brothers

(the Uribes in Aguirre's play). Juan Leiva was a locally- born, city-educated Spanish teacher and law student who was

4r fundo: communal lands allocated to the peasants or campesinos to which they have legal right to farm for their own profit but may not sell. colono: the peasant farmers of the fundos. inquilino: tenant farmers working on the latifundistas1 lands. patron: the landowner or latifundista under whom the inquilinos work. afuerino: peasant wage laborers who do not have a permanent residence on the latifundista's lands nor work a portion thereof for their own subsistence or profit. 203 the leader of the Lonquimay Sindicato Agricola. In the ensuing rebellion he was captured and shot, as was the regional Communist Party leader. The rebelling peasants struck out at the local country stores and warehouses in search of food and clothing; in the process, they killed several proprietors who put up resistance. Seeking refuge from the 100 carabineros sent to quell their uprising, the colonos entrenched on the northern banks of the Bio-Bio

River where they were subsequently surrounded and routed

. 6 out.

Reports conflict over the number of peasants captured and shot in cold blood and the total number of participants involved. The government figures ranged from an initial

150 to as high as 1500. The Santiago press asserted that the "outbreak and armed strike were the result of anti­ government propaganda work carried out by the communist agitators endeavoring to break discipline and create dis- 7 loyal action among the working classes." The Ricardo

Donoso work on the Arturo Alessandri government in power at that time quoted by the Affonso study stated that the courts' evaluation of the rebellion considered it predicated upon the "fin de promover la guerra civil y el cambio en g la forma de Gobierno." Chilean press coverage centered on the peasant pillaging, cattle seizures, crop burning and murders of farm administrators. The rural Deputies Chanks and

Huanchullen (the latter the first Arkano Indian to serve 204

in Chile's Congress) and Senator Virgilio Morales, sent to

investigate the revolt, maintained the uprising began after

the expulsion of the peasants onto the snow-covered high­ ways and was based solely on problems of land distribu- 9 tion. These three representatives who presented the peas­

ant perspective were discredited. Morales was jailed for

his outspoken questioning of the government's involvement.

Why peasants would have burned the crops they would have needed as provisions in a full-scale revolt is one of many

contraditions in the government reports. Clearly, the news

filtering into Santiago from Ranquil and Lonquimay was re­

flective of the latifundistas1 perspectives alone.

The unfulfilled government promises of land distribu­ tion, the conflict of legal and violent recourses, the problems of hunger, shelter and climate, the revolt itself, the discrediting of the revolt as a communist plot, the leadership of Juan Leiva, and the difficulties of peasant organization are the specific historical elements on which

Aguirre drew to develop her epic drama. These elements present the conditions that marked the prelude and process of the peasant rebellion, and they highlight the agrarian sector's atomized and isolated status in 1934.

The second historical moment of the play deals with the 1960s and presents the agrarian sector now unified and in concert with other proletarian sectors in a politically viable position. Aguirre's concept of history between these two moments coincides with the Marxist framework that

stresses an evolutionary process of historical events and

socioeconomic class progress. She points both to the simi­

larities of the two historical moments but also to the

process which separates them. Her historical point is that

the Ranquil massacre of 19 34 was the initiation of cohesive

peasant political consciousness, the necessary first stage

to later unified peasant action. Ranquil shows an isolated

case of peasant revolt which was premature in its action

and doomed to failure because it lacked the full support of

other occupational sectors. However, the camino begun at

Ranquil is one which led to thirty years of gradual, in­

cremental political cohesion among the agrarian, mining,

and urban proletariat. Eventually they united on a national

level, after mutual setbacks and frustrations, to present

a serious challenge to the traditional hegemony of the con­

servative right and the bourgeois center parties. This was

done both peacefully, through the constitutional process,

and extra-legally, through revolution. The former road led

through reform and the latter through violence.

In general terms, the similarities of both historical moments deal with the unwillingness or inability of the

governments of both times to fulfill liberal reform

rhetoric (a rhetoric which brought both Presidents Arturo

Alessandri and Eduardo Frei into power) with concrete

legislation and its sustained implementation. In both 206

instances the agrarian sector pressed for its reforms through legal channels and the institutionalized political process, yet was met with promises, delay, and continual defeat either through the repeal of granted reforms or their proscription by succeeding governments. In both cases the ultimate response to frustrated legal procedures dealt with the possibility of revolt. In Ranquil, revolt was a spontaneous localized response; in 1969, revolt was posited as an ideology and an organized national political alternative through the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolu- cionario (MIR).

In specific terms, the similarities of both historical moments can be summarized as follows. On the political level, the constraints of Chile's presidential government and highly developed party system should be noted, es­ pecially

the ability of Chilean presidents to impose the electoral platform on which they campaigned. Since, generally, the presidential electoral platforms con­ tained more "Left" or populist planks than the Con­ gress would accept, the growing frustration of left­ ist members of presidential coalitions meant the eventual decomposition of these arrangements and a gradually increased dependence on the Right for essential legislation.10

This is precisely the shared experience of the Ranquil peasants and those of 1969. In the 1920s, Arturo Alessand­ ri ' mobilization politics actively courted middle-class and proletarian sectors through a liberal socioeconomic reform platform, but long-lasting meaningful coalition was never 207

realized. Only the middle-class sectors were brought into

power and that power was shared with the traditional ruling

right.

During Carlos Ibanez' previous strong-arm presidency

(1927-1931), federal labor unions had been legalized and

created to shore up the government's political support.

Previously existent rural and urban labor unions suffered

considerable repression, however, although they did achieve

some short-term gains through strikes, slowdowns, and peti­

tions. ^ By the time the short-lived Socialist Republic of

1932 took over, the dictator's labor organization and move­ ment had collapsed. A right-wing coup cut off the promises of the reform-based Socialist Republic and the rural struc­ ture remained unchanged. Under Arturo Alessandri, the lower classes, frustrated again in their expectations for reform— which included expanded domestic markets responsive to mass demand and land redistribution— found their only recourse in the ideology of the nascent communist and socialist movements opposing the bourgeois and center- right coalitions of Alessandri's second presidency (19 32-

1938). Throughout the 1930s, the Radical Party gradually pulled back its support from Alessandri, the Presidential reformer turned conservative.

Following the Russian Comintern recommendation of

1935, for cooperation with bourgeois and democratic parties against fascism, the Chilean Communist Party joined the 208 the Radical and Democratic Parties in the formation of the

Popular Front, thus relegating the proletarian movement to a supporting and secondary role. This was a critical junc­ ture for the Chilean proletariat, which found its only legitimate political vehicles of expression in the Com­ munist and Socialist Parties wedded henceforth to a legal constitutional process that favored the middle-class sec­ tors and further served to entrench class lines and polar­ ity. The Popular Front was dominated by the Radical Party, which in turn was run by its conservative elements allied with the rural southern latifundistas, the wealthy mine . . 12 owners, and the traditional elites. The integration of new politically conscious socioeconomic sectors into the institutionalized political process has been the hallmark of Chilean politics from its earliest history. However, regardless of the "integration” or "transaction" that occurred between rising industrial, mining, and urban sectors and the landed aristocracy, the basic patrdn- campesino unit was left the untouched private domain of the latifundistas.

As Maurice Zeitlin has noted, conditions for popular­ ly-based revolution in the urban and rural proletariat have existed concommitantly with conditions conducive to 13 bourgeois democracy. Rebellions have occurred in both proletarian sectors over time but have been successfully 14 contained by the prevailing bourgeois democracy. In 209 reference to the rebellion of the 19 30s, on which Aguirre focuses, the Norma Stoltz Chinchilla and Marvin Sternberg article on Chilean agrarian reform cites an enlightening comment made by the social historian McBride in 1936:

. . . with the growing unrest in the proletariat and the world over, some echoes of social dis­ quiet reached even the isolated groups on the large estates. Insubordination among the in- quilinos was reported in several districts. Joint protests against working conditions of labor and of living [sic] were presented to some of the hacendados. Strikes were declared on several haciendas, a thing unheard of in Chile from the time of the Conquest.15

The Chinchilla and Sternberg article goes on to state that

under Alessandri and Ibanez, a pattern that was to be repeated many times was established: mobi­ lization of the fundo workers, coinciding with national political mobilizations fostered by in­ surgent, urban-based moderate-left coalition movements seeking office. Following elections the peasant movement would subside as agricul­ tural policies changed little and restrictive laws would proscribe further radical political activity in the agrarian sector.

This is the background experience of the Ranquil and

Lonquimay peasants in 19 34 whose frustrations over such repeated manipulations provoked their revolt. It is impor­ tant to note McBride's awareness of the isolation of such revolt, an isolation out of which the peasants traveled through the next thirty years on their camino to effective protest in the 1960s. That protest was to portend the structural changes implied by FRAP's peaceful road to socialism through reform in 1970. 210

To return to the similarities joining the two histori­

cal moments of Aguirre's play, it should be noted that just

as Arturo Alessandri had achieved the Presidency through middle-class coalition support, so too Eduardo Frei rose to

that office with the same bourgeois support in 1964. Both

Presidents campaigned on issues of populist reform. The

Partido Democrdtico Cristiano (PDC) in the late 1950s and early 1960s had actively courted the rural constituency, encouraging its organization, unionization, and the expro­ priation of the latifundias on its behalf. Until the 1964

Presidential elections, agrarian reform had had but one major achievement in releasing the rural proletariat from the landed aristocracy's authority, and that was the 1958 institution of the secret ballot which exempted the peas­ ants from reprisals for nonsupportive voting behavior.

Otherwise, the only promise of agrarian structural change rested in the programs of the newly-formed Frente de

Accidn Popular (FRAP) under Salvador Allende (the Communist and Socialist Parties' coalition) and the PDC, a center- right coalition. Both coalitions contended for the

Presidency on the basis of agrarian reform, with the PDC the victor. However, the immediate PDC goals or rural labor unionization and equal pay bogged down due to in­ fighting between populist and leftist technocrats over the 17 form of peasant organization. The later PDC Agrarian

Reform Act of 1967 was based on the social function of 211 property rights and sought to "extend" and "perfect" these rights by hastening and legalizing the expropriation pro­ cess, extending the indemnification period for the expro­ priated landholders, and integrating the nearly three million campesinos into the social, economic, and cultural life of Chile through education, credit extension, and 18 technical assistance. However, agrarian mechanization and latifundista disinvestment forced many inquilinos off the large estates, swelling the ranks of the afuerinos who were dependent on wages for their livelihood. The Frei program of land distribution, therefore, benefited only a small rural sector, the inquilinos, precisely that sector 19 undergoing the greatest decline in relative numbers.

The rightist forces, which included, of course, the latifundistas, managed to ease the disadvantages of expro­ priation through long legal delays, removal of vital equipment and livestock, and selection of the choicest 20 lands for themselves. The extensive controls and dis­ ruptive communitarian policies of the Corporacidn de Re­ forma Agricoparia (CORA) raised the essential question of whether the peasant had become an inquilino of the state or whether he should be allowed maximum authority in deci­ sion-making at the local level regarding the redistribution and use of lands.

The Union Cristiano de Campesinos (UCC) and the Frei government agencies of CORA and the Instituto de 212

Desarrollaxniento Agrario Campesino (INDAP) fell short in program implementation of peasant cooperatives, adequate housing, and technical follow-up assistance for redis­ tributed lands. The right to strike was severely limited 21 and could be proscribed by Presidential decree. Thus, despite the first Chilean Presidential campaign predicated primarily upon agrarian reform, the peasant classes were, as in the 1930s, frustrated in the realization of their goals as rightist pressures were brought to bear on the

Frei program, stopping it in mid-stream.

Into this breach of political promise stepped the leftist sectors in the 1970 Presidential campaign at pre­ cisely the moment when the rural proletariat was faced with the same choice it had confronted in its particular and narrow circumstances at Ranquil in 1934: either to accept the failure of the PDC reform program and seek to offset that failure through the legal process or to move in the direction of armed insurrection. The Unidad Popular (UP), a coalition of traditional leftist groups (comprised mainly of the Communist, Socialist, MAPU and Radical Parties) headed by Salvador Allende, spoke to the first alternative with its peaceful road to socialism; the revolutionary left of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR) spoke to the second alternative. It is this choice between re­ form and revolution, between the legal and the violent 213

roads, which Aguirre brings her audience to face in Los que

van quedando en el camino.

Theatre organization and dramatic productions were not

immune to this climate of political choice between reform

and revolution in Chile. Since the 1930s, a gradual "democ­

ratization" of the theatre had been in evidence in con­

sonance with the popular front politics that led to the

institutionalization of the middle sectors into the poli­ tics, economy, and culture of Chile. Grinor Rojo aptly perceives the importance of class and political expansion and the front movements for literature and theatre:

La gestidn del Frente Popular, una de cuyas primeras metas fue el logro de una mds extensa democratizacidn de la vida social y politica del pais, coincide plenamente con el que es el re­ quisite de las mayorias en las diversas manifes- taciones de la vida nacional, esa gestidn crea en Chile las condiciones imprescindibles para la emergencia de aquello a lo que los jdvenes experi- mentalistas, quizas si como un dltimo e inconsciente homenaje a la historia que dejaban detrds suyo, denominaron un 'ambiente teatral'. Esto es, condi­ ciones propicias para la aparici<5n de individuos capaces de hacer teatro, por una parte, y de verlo, por otra.22

Despite a limited, socially didactic theatre associ­ ated with worker syndicates of the 1920s, national theatre received little impetus until the creation of the teatro

Experimental de la Universidad de Chile (TEUCH) in 1941 and the Teatro de Ensayo de la Universidad Catdlica (TUC) in 194 3. Prior to these theatres, the Santiago commercial theatre responded to upper-class tastes with romantic and 214 sentimental comedies, the zarzuela, and works imported from the Spanish and French stages. Psychological drama was in­ cluded later as it filtered across from the European vogue.

The new university theatres represented the first gen­ eration concerned formally with "la tarea del encuentro con lo nacional: el hombre y el tema— los acontecimientos, las contradicciones, el problema social, lo econdmico, lo 23 politico: la mddula del tema." Despite this reform in the direction of national themes and playwrights, the number of Chilean works presented by both theatres did not number 24 more than 57 from 1941 to 1965. Although the Popular

Front coalitions brought disparate classes together to mediate for better working conditions and economic relief, its direction was essentially under bourgeois control, a control mirrored in university productions and structures.

Entonces esta burguesia se enfrentd a su vez, dentro del campo de la cultura, a crear orga- nismos que sirvieran para extender la labor de cultivacidn, que estaba limitada hasta este momento a minorias nacionales, es decir: a la alta burguesia, a la aristocracia.25

After World War II, Chilean culture turned outward and away from its national stance of critical social realism and opted for the post-war "escepticismo com6don y presuntamente culto" that was expressed in a theatre re­ flecting the European and North American preoccupation with 26 individual psychology. The following generation of the

1950s 215

proyecta en la literatura chilena de esta etapa, un esquema ideol6gico dentro del cual se tender^n a compatabilizar, con sospechosa consistencia, lo universalista y lo intimista, lo c6smico y lo personalista, lo metafisico y lo psicol6gico. Es decir, una amalgama de criterios con los que se va a procurar dar salida a la maxima abstraccidn y unida a ella a la mSs estricta subjetividad, en el entendido de que entre ambos extremos no se in- cluyan. . .la realidad y la historia.27

Broadening materialism, elitist class pretensions, and post-war metaphysical anguish arising from rapid changes and cultural displacement were lived and expressed vicari­ ously through imported literary trends superimposed on the national theatre.

The introduction of the revolutionary dramatic tech­ niques of Bertolt Brecht's theatre by TEUCH in its 195 3 presentation of Mother Courage was a harbinger of a

Chilean theatre preeminently political, innovative, and nationally inclusive in content and format in the 1960s.

The Chilean theatre of this decade has been characterized by Rojo as essentially shifting between a revolutionary or reformist orientation. Reform drama reflected the socio­ political context of the options proposed by the Frei

Christian Democratic government. Revolutionary drama re­ flected the structural changes implicit in FRAP's platform.

Por v£as diversas, habiendose iniciado en el cultivo de una dramaturgia fantasista, psicoldgica, metaflsica o inclusive de s&tira social— o sea, esta Ultima una dramaturgia cuyo interns en las cuestiones sociales era un interns eminentemente etico— , los autores dram&ticos chilenos de esos anos se ir^n aproximando, uno trUs otro, a la consideracidn del peculiar desaflo que la historia 216

concreta les propone. . .la insurgencia de una dramaturgia afincada en los problemas contempordneos de la sociedad chilena, y, en general, latinoameri- cana es un suceso propio de los anos sesenta y uno de los rricis significativos que se registran en la trayectoria del teatro chileno de este s i g l o . 2 8

Los que van quedando en el camino represents the new

orientation and offers revolution as the viable alterna­

tive. The drama is conceived and structured from the per­

spective of the proletariat. It is aimed at a multi-class

audience through the inclusion of factual, historical back­

ground information that gives the drama a documentary

flavor proscribing audience class identification.

As dramatic content and Brechtian structure permitted

a broadening of the representational base within drama it­

self, so too the institutions of the new theatre reflected

the alternatives of reform or revolution in their organiza­

tion and ideology. The Universidad de Chile, for example,

underwent a profound structural reform in the late 196 0s.

As part of this change the Departamento de Teatro (DETUCH)

replaced ITUCH with a revolutionary declaration of intent

to present an ideologically committed theatre that might

contribute socially, economically and culturally to the

"proceso chileno." The University sought to bring theatre

to all the people, not just to the intellectual elite and economically affluent. It publically stated its intent to present works that spoke to "los problems que interesen a

la gran masa ciudadana, que sean atractivas no s6lo por 217

tecnica y el arte de mdximo, pues tiene una importancia 29 relevante." In its "Declaracidn," the Breviario de

Est6tica of Brecht was referred to directly:

cuando Brecht habla de entretener, estd diciendo comprometer, cambiar, remecer, despertar, hacer conciente y critico al espectador de un tremendo problema social; o sea el teatro como instrumento de cambios sociales. Y jamds entretener como sin6nimo de adormecer o de entregarse.30

Clearly, the University "Declaracidn" indicated that

its theatre now meant to "entertain" its public in clear

response to the challenging social and political conditions of the Chilean people. It specifically cited the rural and

urban proletariats as targets. A year after the "Declara-

ci6n," in an interview with Rine Leal in Conjunto, Eugenio

Guzman reaffirmed the new DETUCH position as moving away

from the classical university with its single class

(bourgeois) orientation toward a more socially reflective theatre in sympathy with socialist goals of anti-imperal-

ist and antibourgeois content.

The Teatro de la Universidad de Concepcidn (TUC) took a reformist direction by including works of a liberal and politically critical tone in its universal repertoire.

Independent theatres such as El Cabildo, ICTUS, tradition­ ally associated with the vanguard and absurdist Chilean and Latin American theatre, and ALEPH, comprised of extreme

leftist students, made commitments beyond the reformist stance that emphasized national works and problems. These 218 theatres rejected works that were solely provocative "en forma gratuita o puramente artfstica" in preference for works that would "hacer mover en las butacas el adocena- miento del conformismo de la clase dirigente" or that would

"conciernan a los hombres y mujeres de nuestro pafs, que 33 los impacte, que los haga cambiar para mejorar." Politi­ cal consciousness-raising and active audience commitment became the goals also of the Central Unica de Trabajadores

(CUT) whose syndicate workers, theatres cut across occupa­ tional groups and incorporated the urban proletariat, miners, dockers, and public employees. The 1960s, then, reflected through its theatre the coalition of leftist groups that formed FRAP.

As the decade drew to an end, major characteristics were shared by DETUCH, ICTUS, CUT, and ALEPH. All became dedicated to discussing on stage the problems of economic and political class conflict through realistic theatre.

The politicization of actors and directors coincided with that of the new leftist playwrights and manifested itself increasingly through collectively conceived works and col­ lectively selected repertoires. The search for "relevant," if not "agitational," people's theatre led the groups out of the traditional theatre houses into the union halls, marketplaces and rural plazas of Chile to bring the obrero and campesino into the theatre and, importantly, onto the stage, or at least into the discussion of the theatre witnessed. Both Chilean and Latin American playwrights were encouraged. Their works were given major considera­ tion for production. This drama was overwhelmingly realistic, frequently historically based and presented in documentary or Brechtian fashion. The people involved in the production, the drama produced, and the audience courted were all elements that reflected an artistic ideology 34 founded on inclusion rather than exclusion. This aspect was clearly revolutionary within the Chilean theatre. If there were reform elements common to both the rhetoric of the PDC and FRAP platforms and the theatre, they were the need to include national class sectors and to address their social and political problems. If there were revolutionary elements common to the leftist political ideology, they were the inclusion of the proletarian classes in a national agitational drama which would be directed to proletarian audiences and structural changes both within the theatre itself and the plays it presented.

Isidora Aguirre clearly chose the route of creating a revolutionary drama, of the proletariat and for the pro­ letariat though also directed to middle and upper-class sectors as well. Its fundamental intent was to foment structural change in the fabric of Chilean politics, even through violent means. Her drama is born of the frustra­ tion of agrarian reform promised and marginally realized 220

through legal channels over a span of some thirty-five

years.

... de los que no entendieron bien, de los que murieron sin ver la aurora, de sacrificios ciegos y no retribuidos, de LOS QUE VAN QUEDANDO EN EL CAMINO, tambien se hizo la revolucion..." CHE

The above quotation begins and locates Isidora

Aguirre's published play, Los que van quedando en el camino, 35 within the context of revolution. The reference is, of

course, to the Cuban Revolution and draws an analogy between

the popular nature of that revolt and the one which

Aguirre has chosen as the historical basis of her play. The technical directions also reflect the popular direction of her work and her intent to attract a popular audience. They call for the barest of stages and a minimum of props, both aspects keeping the play versatile enough to allow presen­ tation outdoors or in the traditional theatre with maximum adaptability to varying audiences and materials at hand.

The basic set requires a raised platform, three panels used variously to simulate an adobe wall or natural elements, several benches, and peasant tools and utensils. Lighting, when available, indicates the movement between past and present, but lighting effects can be substituted by guitar emphasis or by the use of panels denoting place and time.

Costumes are of the Andean peasant. The guitar provides background music to underscore scenic and temporal transi­ tions and to provide dramatic emphasis. The cast numbers 221

twenty-three and individual actors may participate in

dramatic characterizations, form a chorus, narrate events

directly to the public, or carry props on stage. Flexibil­

ity is the technical hallmark of the play. From the above quotation and from this technical format it becomes clear

that the playwright directed herself beyond an intellectual

elite to the masses, treating a theme of popular breadth designed for a popular audience under sundry physical condi­ tions.

The play comprises three basic sequences: an introduc­ tory or prologue section, and two major sections entitled

The Good Days and The Bad Days. Each sequence is composed of a series of brief scenes united around the core content of peasant revolt and unified through both the main char­ acter of Lorenza Uribe and various themes of literacy, hunger, and nature, which weave back and forth between past and present.

The prologue is divided into three sections: the choral collective presentation of the past facts of

Ranquil; the peasant's presentation of the current facts, with an opposition government viewpoint piped in on taped voice overlays;, and the presentation of Mama Lorenza and her conflict between the two historical moments. All three parts are cast in the present with the variation in the final section between past and present as Mama

Lorenza's memories are concretized before her and the 222 audience through scenes played on a raised platform in the background. Thus, three time frames are introduced: the past, the present, and what I shall call the intrusive past or visualized memory of Mama Lorenza which bridges the first two frames. The past, though referred to by the chorus and actors on the platform, is not made concrete on stage until the transition to the major sections of the play: The Good Days and The Bad Days. In the prologue

Mama Lorenza functions in the present. It is the intru­ sive past which will draw her into the historical past presented in the two major sections.

The division of the drama into The Good Days and The

Bad Days conveys the structural conflict between reform and revolution that faced the peasants of Ranquil and that con­ tinued as an overriding conflict in the 1960s and 1970s.

During The Good Days, reforms are proposed to ameliorate and improve the quality of peasant life. The peasants themselves seek their own organizational reforms through the legal channel of unionization under the direction of

Juan Leiva. Reforms are presented in five scenes of struggle for universal education, unionization, rural ad­ judication of disputes, the establishment of an independent class identity and self-sufficiency, and land redistribu­ tion. The Bad Days present the crisis of reform gone astray and the process leading to violent revolt that ends 223

in the peasant massacre and its tragic effect on the Uribe

family and friends.

The opening prologue scenes form a dialectic between

three actor-narrators discussing the past and a chorus com­ menting on the present. Their dialogue begins the temporal

tension between past and present conveyed structurally throughout the play. These two actor groups then reverse their temporal comments with the chorus commenting on the past and the narrators commenting on the present. The present centers on the contemporary moment of the play's debut, 1969, just prior to the triumph of the Allende gov­ ernment. The past centers on the peasant uprisings of

Ranquil and Lonquimay in Chile in 1934. Through the re­ versal of comments by actor groupings, Aguirre structurally destroys the temporal separation of Ranquil and the present moment and thematically brings the specific historical moment into a present and universal light. This effect is achieved by reinforcing the temporal dialectic with a structural dialectic which moves between the general story of the Ranquil peasants and specific story of Lorenza

Uribe's family. The historical case of Ranquil symbolizes the general Chilean peasant situation of the 1960s.

Aguirre dramatically plays the emotional content of the drama of the Uribes against the historical content of the drama of the Ranquil peasants, always controlling audience involvement through constant scene changes from past to 224

present and through direct address to the audience.

Through the opening scenes Aguirre sets in motion the epic theatre promoted by Bertolt Brecht. The prologue sec­

tion achieves a documentary, quasi-cinematic effect through

a collage technique which includes music, taped voices, a

chorus, group and individual narrations and direct address

to the audience, multiple staging and lighting, and a rapid

change of scenes whose temporal reference constantly fluctu­ ates between past and present, all of which control the dis­ tance between play content and audience emotional and intel=

lectual involvement. However, it is specifically the temporal control on which Aguirre relies to wrest the audience from its comfortable and passive role to lead it to a commitment to the cause advocated, that is, the need for peasant sector reforms, even through violent revolution.

Aguirre provokes the audience to reform its normal refer­ ence from a traditional, compartmentalized concept of his­ tory to a temporal historical continuum. The resulting paradox is one which consciously emphasizes the separation of audience and stage action and which at the same time sets the stage to unite audience and stage action by the end of the play. The role of temporal structuring which is germaine to an understanding of the poltical philosophy underlying the drama's creative base will be discussed later.

In the prologue it is learned that twenty years ago the "progressive" government promised land to the 225

impoverished peasants and encouraged them to press their

legal rights and claims to these lands. The landholders or

latifundistas reacted by coming down critically on the gov­ ernment whose laws the landed class traditionally had

legislated in its own favor. The government countered by blaming the latifundistas for the rising peasant expecta­ tions, pressures, and claims. The peasant class, caught in the crossfire of verbal accusations and counter­ accusations, found itself involved suddenly in an "illegal" procedure initially urged upon it by the government which now sought to suppress it in the bloody massacres of Ran­ quil in June 19 34. Seventy peasants including women and children were shot in cold blood on the banks of the Bio-

Bio River. The incarceration and/or pursuit of other peas­ ants involved or suspected of involvement endured for years afterwards.

The chorus punctuates the above narration with vari­ ations of the line "Igual que hoy," which functions to connect the past events with the contemporary historical moment. The guitar strums and the narrators and chorus reverse time references with the refrain now changed to

"Igual que ayer." The current government, characterized simply as that of 1969, also promises land to the peasants,

"cambiando un poco para no cambiar lo esencial." (3) Hunger continues and the government counsels patience. The guitar strums and the actors form a united group of peasants who 226

are ostensibly inarching to the capital. They brandish

placards which sum up the peasant demands of both past and

present moments:

La legalidad no le sirve al campesino pobre.

Queremos la tierra.

Pan para nuestros hijos.

Contra los abusos.

Contra los despidos. (3)

A commentator's taped voice urges the peasants to re­

turn home, calls their strike illegal, announces the

government's willingness to bargain and forgive them if they

return to their jobs, informs them that consumer indices

show them substantially better off than their forebears, asks

their patience, and expresses its willingness to "study"

their problems. The peasants ignore the voice and continue marching. They reject further negotiations and empty promises and urge unity: "Los explotados somos m5s que los explotadores, por eso jla uni6n es el arma del probre!" (3)

The concept of union works on many levels— from that of the

Ranquil peasants, to that of Mama Lorenza and the contempor­ ary peasants, to that of the actors and audience. Thus

Aguirre weaves the rhetoric of both sides into a dialectic between past and present, peasant and government, promise and poverty. The first narrator-chorus sequence presents the facts; the second presents the rhetoric that contours the opposing perceptions of those facts. 227

The prologue next focuses on the particular and

exemplary case of the Uribes to elaborate and dramatize the

stated facts. Mama Lorenza is a survivor of Ranquil. Pur­

sued by memories of her dead family and compatriots, she now relives and resurrects their past. Her introduction brings the temporal dialectic into play again, this time from present to past. A little boy, Juanucho, asks Mama

Lorenza for bread, a reinforcement of the hunger theme, "Pan para nuestros hijos," which is kept present through the marchers still on stage with their placards. This tech­ nique closes the separation in the audience's mind between past and present, between the particular and general cases introduced in the opening scenes.

The child's description of the passing marchers evokes distant memories for Mama Lorenza which are concretized and depicted hauntingly on the raised platform by actors por­ traying her three dead brothers and sister and the local police. When Juanucho sees the placard, he asks Mama

Lorenza three times for more bread, each request synchron­ ized with the falling to the ground of one of the brothers on the platform, unseen, of course, to the boy. The three brothers seem to be sacrificed in the quest for bread. Mama

Lorenza realizes that the dead have to be confronted in her conscience. She sends Juanucho out to the stream to wash wool, much as she did before the uprising years ago. The brothers rise and entreat Mama Lorenza to remember them now 228 at this critical time of new uprising and to carry on the wisdom and words of their leader, the Christ-like Juan

Leiva: "La palabra de Juan Leiva era como un pan bianco y limpio. . .junto a la galleta sucia del pe6n campesino."

(5) His words had brought truth and, in order to realize that truth, revolt. Thus Aguirre associates the word bread with the idea of the peasant staff of life. The image is maintained throughout the play as a means of thematic unity.

Also, there is created here a tension between the images of pan-comida and pan-palabra which is at the crux of the peasant plight in the need for both government and peasants to fuse the images through action. Mama Lorenza struggles with the past and its great losses for her particularly and for the peasants generally. She unwillingly begins her personal journey and Chile's epic journey into the past.

The play becomes at this juncture at once a quasi­ documentary reinvestigation of Chile's agrarian past through the specific story of the Uribe family and a consciousness- raising event in the present for both Mama Lorenza and the audience. The concentrated prologue explanation informs the public instantly of the entire play content, which is nothing more than an elaboration and a dramatization of the prologue information through a series of brief scenes. The audience, therefore, is given no mystery to unravel and is kept from emotional involvement and catharsis. Although

Mama Lorenza comes closest to fitting the definition of 229

protagonist in the play, her repeated removal from a given

scene or dilemma to comment or narrate the facts directly

to the audience keeps her personal history somewhat objec­

tive and within a documentary cast.

With Juanucho sent off-stage to wash wool the transi­

tion from the prologue section to main body of the epic

takes place. Mama Lorenza takes off her shawl and recalls

the village of Santa Barbara during the October sheep-shear­

ing when she, Lorenza Uribe, washed wool in the river and knew "good days." The shawl serves as a transitional device indicating the movement of the protagonist between the past and present. By removing the shawl Mama Lorenza becomes the younger Lorenza Uribe.

The Good Days begin when the actors come down from the

"memory" platform into the lighted stage area where they assume a normal appearance and actions. The guitar accom­ panies the transition to the past. Lorenza is seen demonstrating the wool-cleaning and dyeing process to her younger, domestically disinterested and politically educated sister, Dominga. The latter has fallen in love with her married professor, Juan Leiva. The eldest Uribe, Pedro, enters with news of a newly-enacted land reform that pro­ vides for the division among the peasants of government- owned lands which have been usurped incrementally by the latifundistas. The inquilinos, the peasant workers of these lands, will now become owners or colonos after an 230 initial seven-year period of working the lands or pueblas.

The mother of the Uribes recalls the confiscated puebla of a neighbor which was taken back when the first crops were ready for harvest; she cynically comments: "Una cosa es que el gobierno se acuerde de hacer justicia. . . , otra es que el rico lo consienta. El que nace pobre, muere pobre. Esa es la lay, y no conozco otra." (10) The brothers reject this comment which is representative of the traditional and fatalistic peasant attitude which promotes the status quo. Aware of the possibility of violently expropriating lands through revolution, the brothers reject this European solution, the reference being to the Russian Revolution of

1917, Rather, they opt for the peaceful, legal steps pro­ moted by Juan Leiva.

The guitar strums and Lorenza steps forth to narrate

Pedro Uribe's efforts to establish his puebla in the nearby town where Lorenza's intended, Rogelio, lives. Rogelio appears and he and Lorenza joke about her reluctance to become engaged despite her advancing years. She goes to the nearby river during their discussion about land prob­ lems. She washes her face and drinks. Here Aguirre draws the visual and symbolic association of Lorenza with a fertile land as a mother earth figure. Lorenza has been caring for an orphaned infant, la Guacolda; in the present.

Mama Lorenza cares for the orphaned Juanucho. Both chil­ dren are referred to as the "semilias del trigo." Thus, 231 the image of Lorenza Uribe as a teluric symbol becomes reinforced. It is no coincidence that she is called "Mama"

Lorenza in the present framework. The maternal label, the seed image, and the water association mutually reinforce the symbolic character of Lorenza.

Kneeling by the river Lorenza explains her distaste for the idea of being dominated by man, the reference to

Chile and the latifundistas being obvious. Such scenes between Lorenza and Rogelio are the only lighter moments of the play. They direct the overall tone away from the documentary portrayal to a personal level and occur only twice in the play.

The time reverts to the present and Juanucho asks

Mama Lorenza for details about his grandfather, Juan

Leiva, and his grandmother, Dominga Uribe. He learns that

Juan Leiva arrived in Lonquimay in 1927 to establish an agrarian union to protect the peasants and their lands.

Mama Lorenza remembers seeing him pulled from the river but only reveals to Juanucho his grandfather's ideas and words, both strongly oriented to the advocacy of peasant literacy, education, and pacifist action within the legal framework.

The scene shifts to the past and the union office where five dramatizations of obstacles faced by the peas­ ant leaders occur before they win peasant acceptance and support for the union. The concept of peasant unity as a political arm becomes central as the play's major theme. 2 32

The first battle deals with peasant ignorance and illiteracy, exemplified through the enacted story of an old couple who unknowingly sign away their lands in papers pre­ sented to them by the "autoridades" who are purportedly assaying and verifying their holdings.

The second battle presents peasant fear of reprisals and dismissals for attending union classes which teach reading and writing and the fear of being abandoned by the union after voting in its slate. Slander campaigns seek to discredit the union with labels of opportunism and commun­ ism. Its leaders are termed "rojos."

The third battle focuses on peasant disunity within the union by emphasizing the organization's inability to deal with interpersonal daily disputes over land, water, and stock, and the members' failure to understand the need to concentrate all efforts on legal rights and laws disputed in the distant capital. There is recognition, however, of the union's need to establish a peasant cooperative to circumvent the local "pulpero" with its paralyzing economic feudalism and opportunism at peasant expense.

The fourth battle discusses the bonding of peasants to the latifundistas through individual acts of charity and favors from cradle to grave bestowed to ensure loyalty be­ tween patrdn and inguilino. Such favors range from school­ ing to medical care and burials. The conservative peasant considers politics the traditional and legitimate domain of 233 the patrdn, who, through superior intelligence, ability, and hard work, is better equipped to handle complex land problems; on the other hand, the inquilino is often viewed as drunk, lazy, and incapable. Questioning the patr6n1s legal rights to the lands is considered an act of disloyalty and betrayal of the hand that feeds and cares for the inquilino. The traditional noblesse oblige is summed up by the peasants as follows:

aquf se dice que los patrones, con buenas pala- bras y enganitos, nos tienen bien atados al yugo. AsI serd, pues. Pero y digo que iesta bien que haya patronesI El pobre, siendo tan miserable, ccudndo va a ayudar al pobre? IHace falta que haya un rico cerca, que le tienda la mano!25

The fifth battle concentrates on the bureaucrat and red tape. This final battle leads directly into the Uribe story as actors portray the confrontation of the brothers with a subofficial. The official's peasant assistant will later betray the peasant cause. The official denounces the union as a "communist" operation and Juan Leiva as a political opportunist siphoning money from the peasant pocket. The evidence of the latter accusation comprises a fistful of

"thumb-signed" peasant papers attesting to the subversive actions of the peasant union. The official brings written orders for the detention of Juan Leiva. He scoffs at peasant land claims, upholding the argument that only the written word and title held by the latifundistas are legitimate. Pedro Uribe enters at this point with the 234 written copy of the final decree for the partitioning of the Hacienda Ranquil among the peasants. The peasants

leave the deflated official to plan their victory celebra­ tion. Control of the written, legal word, formerly the exclusive right of the elite, has become a universal right.

Of each of the depicted battles, only the last presents a positive solution or peasant victory, which is, of course, the ultimate goal and victory. There is little rhetoric promoting the union cause, but the facts and exemplary cases are so ordered to stand as the defense of the union's existence. Only in the last battle does Jose Uribe inter­ cede to clarify and justify the union and its actions.

Each battle, either directly or indirectly, brings focus to bear on the outstanding need for peasant literacy and consciousness as a major means of self-protection. Even in the scenes about peasant disunity and latifundista paternal­ ism the written word is brought into play as the medium of change. The content and purpose of the battle scenes is didactic; however, Aguirre's reliance for their portrayal on short dramatic scenes and on the word visualized rather than expounded maintains aesthetic appeal and audience interest.

Lorenza steps forth to describe the happy days of the

Ranquil land partitioning. Rogelio returns to the stage and Lorenza pledges to marry him when her people in Nitrito also receive their pueblas. She fears peasant success in 235

Ranquil will only serve to entrench latifundista resistance to expanding the puebla concept beyond the token example of

Ranquil. Lorenza's forebodings are born out as the young

Manungo Uribe enters to warn of the approaching civil guard. They have come to detain Pedro and Jos£ Uribe on orders from the latifundistas, who fear the brothers will organize other peasant sectors. The Good Days draw to an end.

The Bad Days begin with a scene in the present of Mama

Lorenza's conscience and memory. The dead again exhort her to look backward in time. Rogelio appears bringing her a basket of wheat, symbol of life, to tell her that death does not exist. She cedes reluctantly, as before, and the time frame switches to the past.

All is abundance in Nitrito: la Guacolda thrives,

Dominga expects Juan Leiva's child, the wheat fields and vineyards promise bumper crops, and the animals produce many offspring. The personal story of the Uribe family, referred to indirectly and generally in the first half of the play, now becomes the focus of the remaining drama. The events leading to the massacre of Ranquil are remembered by

Mama Lorenza and presented through the story of Lorenza

Uribe.

The Uribes discuss their personal situation and that of the peasant cause. Dominga claims her open communist loyalty, which Pedro seeks to define. For her, communism 236

"es pelear firme, por que cada nino que nace, cualquier que sea la cuna, tenga pan v escuela, y se le venga facilito el porvenir. . ." (37), an obviously naive definition which

Lorenza is quick to ignore. The political label of such a goal is of no interest to Lorenza; only the justice behind the goal is important. This scene is the only direct treatment of the role of communism in the events of Ranquil and Longuimay and will be discussed in greater detail below.

The civil guard enters searching for Pedro and Josd.

The guards demand that the colonos sign labor contracts with the government (led and configured by the latifundista sector) under pain of relinquishing their pueblas. Such an order is tantamount to a formal return to the patrdn- inquilino system and the Uribes refuse to sign contracts to work their own lands. The guards inform them they are once more inquilinos anyway since the government has changed hands in the capital and the former system is now in legal force. They arrest Pedro and Josd. Lorenza is questioned for her failure to sign an eviction notice, which she has burned defiantly. From this point the dramatic action in­ tensifies, specifically for the Uribes.

Red panels representing fire provide the background to the scene of peasant expulsion from the pueblas.

Lorenza and her family hurl insults at the guards who re­ frain from retributive action out of fear of creating martyrs for the peasant cause. Lorenza's warning at the 237 end of the scene forecasts the future stance the peasants will be forced to adopt now that the written law and con­

stitutional procedures have failed them: "No tendremos

carabinas pero tenemos la rabia. . .i£sa es el arma del pobre!" (42) The dispossessed of Nitrito are forced up into the barren uplands of the Bio-Bio in the dead of win­ ter. Rogelio brings provisions from Ranquil, thereby risk­ ing loss of the Ranquil pueblas. The provisions emphasize the spectre of hunger that plagues the peasants, especially the children, and the metaphor of the bread developed earlier recurs. Rogelio expresses the peasant policy in face of adversity: "Defender la tierra de otros, es defender la de uno. Y aqu£, la unica fuerza es seguir unidos, en la buena como en la mala." (4 3)

The peasants, grouped in Alto Llanquen, discuss alter­ native means of survival: working in the saw mills, hiring out to the Americans to pan gold, rising up against the landholders and reclaiming their lands by force. The first options prove untenable given the ties between the mills and mines in American hands and the latifundistas of

Nitrito. Pedro counsels against violence on the grounds of lack of weapons and provisions and because "la pelea, por ahora, hay que hacerla en la legalidad. . .el movimiento obrero se halla dispuesto a respaldarnos. . . La tierra puede ser recuperada, la vida de los campesinos no." (47)

His conviction reflects that of Juan Leiva: pacific and 238

legal responses to injustice and cooperation with organized

labor. This conviction is set aside, however, with the

entrance of Manungo who has accidentally shot and killed a

civil guard in a struggle to avoid being detained. The

entire peasant group agrees to assume communal responsi­

bility. The die is cast with this act which will be

interpreted as overt violent peasant insurrection: "ahora a

defendernos del hambre le llaman 1communismo' . . .se

entregue o no, igual nos jodimos. Muere un campesino: como

si hubiera muerto un buey. Pero . . . que les matan un policla. . .Joder." (49) The dead guard's companion, a

corporal of inquilino parentage, is quickly bound by the peasants and interrogated. He confesses they have been betrayed from within and are accused of plotting to violently retake the Nitrito pueblas. Realizing they now

have been accused and condemned unjustly, Rogelio argues

for revolt in the face of the mockery made of legal pro­

cedures. Pedro also cedes to this logic and Rogelio's argu­ ment that "al comienzo, la pelea era por un pedazo de

tierra. Ahora es por lo que Juan Leiva llama 'la causa.'

Eso es, para que haya justicia. Para que las leyes las haga el gobierno de los trabajadores." (52) The peasants

freely enter one by one in the revolt urged upon them by the

latifundistas' self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mama Lorenza describes the ensuing revolt to Juanucho

as she plucks a chicken for her patrdn's dinner. She and 239

Juanucho plot to keep the neck for their soup. Thus

Aguirre draws the connection between the past and present hunger. Mama Lorenza warns Juanucho against stealing. The distinction between her small theft of the chicken neck to keep alive and the peasants' pillaging of the pulperos for provisions and arms in their struggle against hunger and injustice is brought into sharp focus. This scene ex­ presses Aguirre's justification of violent peasant action in the face of contravention of laws which exclude consid­ eration of basic peasant needs for existence. Bread and hunger are the immediate catalysts of the action, injus­ tice its provocation, and united peasant violence its agent.

Mama Lorenza narrates to Juanucho the naive expecta­ tion on the part of the peasants that they would receive national support and defense from the organized workers in the capital and at the mines. She also explains that the only news that reached the capital was that reported by the latifundistas. It expressed the latters' views and fears and was designed to bring in police and military forces against the peasant.

The time reverts to the past and the mountain niches of Ranquil where some seventy peasants have hidden to evade the authorities. Here they learn they have been cut off from the capital and that their side of the conflict has gone unrepresented either by the government or by the press. Juan Leiva and Rogelio attempt to slip through the 240 last unguarded pass to the capital to seek aid and counter the stories of criminal peasant bands purportedly on a killing rampage in the south. Betrayed in their plans from within, both men are captured. Their coming together sym­ bolizes the pact between the pacific word and the violent revolutionary act. The word has been won over to action.

In Ranquil, Rogelio's father has been shot for harboring Juan Leiva. The beseiged peasants suspect and accuse the traitor. They learn that Juan Leiva will be shot unless they surrender. When no one responds to the government ultimatum to surrender, which is dramatized through a taped voice amplified over a loud speaker above the roar of the Bio-Bfo waters, a shot is heard. This is one of the most dramatically charged scenes in the play.

The tension is broken by the single gunshot. It is an action already known to the audience and Mama Lorenza. The drama rests not in the plot of unknown actions but in known historical and incontrovertible facts vividly remembered.

Mama Lorenza appears from the ensuing silence and addresses the public. She explains the details of Juan

Leiva's death and that she never saw nor heard of Rogelio again. Rogelio appears behind Mama Lorenza on stage and reiterates that "la muerte no existe, Lorenza, si uno tiene su idea, y pasa con ella a la eternidad. . .iDe los que no entienden bien, de los que van quedando en el camino tambi£n se hacen las revoluciones, Lorenza!" (64-65) The 241

hardest memories remain for Lorenza as she recalls the

hollowed out wall where she was hidden from the authorities

after the massacre. Rogelio entreats her to remember it

all: "Quien le va a entregar a los vivos lo que hicieron

los muertos." (64).

The final scenes of the play dramatically ensue as the audience sees Lorenza hidden in the wall where a peasant woman comes to describe to her the fate of her family and peasant compatriots. Seventy were shot in cold blood. Her brothers were all captured except Manungo who escaped and returned to Nitrito to assist their crippled mother, the pregnant Dominga, and a young girl left in charge of la

Guacolda. The civil guards found Tlanungo and the young girl. The girl jumped into the river with the infant in her arms to avoid being shot and Manungo was killed on the banks, executed as had been his brothers. The mother has been left alone; any who seek to aid her or an Uribe will be executed. Upon hearing this, Lorenza flees from her hiding place and returns to Nitrito to help Dominga and her mother. In the meantime the mother has died. The sisters are taken prisoners and finally reach a railway station with other Ranquil survivors after a trek barefoot in the snow over mountains without food or sleep. Guards urge them to keep moving, fearful of a group of workers report­ edly headed in that direction who are coming from urban areas to greet the Ranquil and Lonquimay survivors. Shots 242 are heard as the guards attempt to scare off the approach­ ing workers whose voices cheer on the peasants. This act of urban support for the campesino portends the future road of unified effort.

The time and scene finally return to the present. Mama

Lorenza tells Juanucho never to forget "los heroicos campesinos que pelearon en Ranquil" and that "la muerte no existe." (69) Mama Lorenza finally smiles. She assures the questioning Juanucho that the striking peasants passing by on their way to the capital will arrive at their desti­ nation: "Los que habfan quedado en el camino con su sacrifico, ahora van marchando con ellos. . ." (69) Mama

Lorenza has fulfilled the mission of history and her memor­ ies and has passed them on to Juanucho and the audience.

All the actors return to the stage carrying peasant tools and the placards which carry the same messages as before but now enlarged. Mama Lorenza and Juanucho join them in singing the peasant marching hymn based on the words and refrain of "La Segunda Declaracion de la Habana" by Fidel

Castro: "Ahora sf la historia tendra que contar con los pobres de America." (70)

Whereas the prologue comprises six scenes (three in the present recalling the general past and three in the present evoking the specific past), the main dramatic body is divided into two sections of 20 and 19 scenes respec­ tively. Scene divisions are accomplished by guitar 24 3 interludes, the toque de riel, and lighting effects. The section on The Good Days is basically a portrayal of the past general story of Ranquil, the temporal breakdown being

14 past scenes (11 deal with the general peasant case and

3 with the Uribes and their involvement in the general case), 4 present scenes and 2 scenes of past-present memory struggle. The section on The Bad Days, again with a major past orientation, has 11 past scenes (5 deal with the gen­ eral case and 6 with the Uribes; of the 5 all include the

Uribe brothers and/or Rogelio), 5 present scenes and 3 past-present memory struggle scenes. This section focuses on the particular Uribe story.

Aguirre weaves the particular and general past to­ gether in The Bad Days by placing the Uribes and Rogelio as the peasant leaders in the general scenes. As stated earlier, the layered presentation of peasant struggle mani­ fests itself in the general Ranquil story, in the Uribe family role in that Ranquil story, in the romantic Lorenza-

Rogelio interludes, and in Mama Lorenza's present story.

Due to the particular-general case juxtaposition,

Aguirre's form allows her multiple climaxes. Two occur on the particular level of the Uribes: when Lorenza flees her hiding place and when Mama Lorenza accepts the responsi­ bility of facing the episodes of The Bad Days and trans­ mitting them to Juanucho and to the present. Another takes place on the past general level when Juan Leiva is shot— symbolizing the failure of the Ranquil uprising. The final

climax occurs on the present historical level when the actors sing and march to bring the message into the audience at the play's end. This crescendo effect of dramatic cli­ maxing is designed for agitational purposes to capture the audience's attention on various levels and convince it to participate in the historical continuum Aguirre has established, to take up the revolution on the peasants' behalf for social and political change and justice. The attempt is to direct the audience to react thoughtfully and actively. Aguirre seeks to avoid emotional catharsis on the Uribe level yet to let that emotional impact work in supportive consonance with the facts of the historical case.

By not discharging these impacts through prolonged empathetic association and identification on the particular level, Aguirre's work achieves a broad audience appeal not based on the need of a specific social sector's association with the content. By purposely seeking audience disassoci- ation through past-present and general-particular distancing juxtapositions, a universal cross-cultural and multi­ sector audience is possible.

As we look closely at the temporal playing back and forth we must ask why this major structure has been used.

The effect or end-product of Aguirre's technique is the destruction of the normal barriers between past and present.

To destroy such barriers Aguirre first must stress them to 245

show their existence. Hence, we see the use of the chorus,

the group narration, the taped voices, the intrusive past

visualized in surreal action on the platform to convey

memory and conscience— all of which appear in the prologue

scenes. The constant structural shift on stage between

past and present, which characterizes the main body of the drama, and the brief independent scenes work to keep this

separation starkly outlined before the audience. The

structure seems to convey its own message. This message becomes clear only through juxtaposition of the structure to the content, the latter, in effect, appearing to deny the former. In fact, in the opening lines of the chorus and group narrators, it is stated that the past is the present and the present the past. Yet the structure initially keeps them apart.

Through the thematic struggle of Mama Lorenza to synthesize the two temporal historical moments, the past is no longer comfortably relegated to its normal isolated mental confines but is brought forward to affect and effect the present. This is seen early through the intrusive past scenes when memories are crystalized and concretized on the platform. What Mama Lorenza must and does learn— that the past must be faced and its value imparted and inculcated into the present— is what Aguirre wants the audience to learn. But the lesson must be learned not through the audience personally identifying emotionally with either the 246

general case of Ranquil or the particular case of the

Uribes but through establishing intellectual connections

between these parts of the drama. The connection is ulti­ mately made through the content, which the audience is led

to consider and to which it is encouraged to respond.

As would seem in keeping with Aguirre's attempts to

control audience identification with content, character­

ization is kept at a minimum since all roles serve as idea vehicles and not grounds for elaborate personality develop­ ment. Even in the instance of Mama Lorenza, who is the main protagonist, characterization is minimal. Only she and Rogelio, and then only in two brief scenes dealing with their romantic relationship, show a personal side. There is an implicit association of characters with Christian symbols. Juan Leiva never physically appears on stage but is referred to only through his transmitted word and memory, and thus made a presence. He is the vehicle of knowledge, a type of Christ the redeemer figure, the preacher of peace­ ful revolution. He and the Uribes are betrayed by the peasant Naranjo, the traitor within. The betrayal occurs three times. Rogelio and the Uribe brothers are Juan

Leiva's disciples, dedicated to promulgating his word and sacrificing their lives on behalf of his ideals and the collective good.

Lorenza is a multiple symbol of the Virgin, protec- toress of children, the aged, the suffering, and the 247

oppressed. She is also the Mother Earth figure for Chile

associated with earth and water. She functions structural­

ly as the main bridge between past and present, as the

catalyst of Rogelio's revolutionary commitment to the universal peasant cause, as the narrator and interpreter- commentator of the past. She functions in both past and present. She plays out her own story in the past, objec­ tively narrates and comments on scenes in the past, and plays out her present struggle between her personal past and present.

All other characterization is directed to the typifi- cation of ideas and attitudes. Lorenza's mother represents traditional peasant skepticism, Dominga the newly-educated youth full of ideals and zeal but of little political depth,

Manungo the loyal youth led by the heat of his emotions and anxious to prove the temper of his steel, and Rogelio the revolutionary willing to act for the collective good without personal fear. The peasants as a collective group provide documentary character to the drama and are basically passive until the final scenes in the mountains above the Bio-Bfo and in the final scene when barriers between past and pres­ ent are destroyed and Mama Lorenza joins them to continue their revolution, begun and frustrated at Ranquil some thirty years earlier. At these junctures her role contours and elicits their presence. 248

Only when Mama Lorenza has come to terms with her role

in the peasant revolution do the peasants become active as

a unit marching with her toward the audience and emerging

from the past into the present with her. She resumes her former revolutionary role long relegated to the past and suppressed in the present. At this point the need scenically to separate past from present and actor from audience ends.

Aguirre consciously has maintained a barrier between the audience and the play through her control of character­ ization/ content, and structure. When the content or idea triumphs over Mama Lorenza's mental barriers, the structural barriers dissolve, no longer needed, and the historical continuum she then elects to participate in is transferred to the audience. The thematic dialectic tension between past and present has been maintained structurally until that tension has been resolved into action on the stage and ultimately in the audience.

We have been talking about the dialectic tension created dramatically between structure, content, and audience. However, there exists an obvious and obviously drawn analogy by Aguirre of the artistic dialectic with a political dialectic. The combined form and content in Los que van quedando en el camino is directed to audience action on the political level as the deeper content of the theme also deals with the dialectic tension between 249

structure and content on a political level. What Aguirre

calls for is a structural end of class and occupational

barriers that have continued from the past into the present.

The sector of her interest in this drama is the Chilean peasant class and its bondage to the traditional patr6n- esclavo relationship which had become institutionalized within Chilean political and social structures.

With the victory of the FRAP forces in 1970, the dis­ pute between legal process and violent revolution posited by Isidora Aguirre in her 1969 play appeared resolved in favor of the former. This, of course, was the electoral victory of Allende's Unidad Popular. The UP was committed to work within the bourgeois constitution and its legal framework to institute social and economic reforms that ultimately were to end traditional proletarian economic dependency. The "via chilena" toward peaceful socialism, though revolutionary in class restructuring and production goals, was, nonetheless, traditional in its reform process and implementation and dependent on PDC and Rightist sup­ port for program execution. Allende managed to use the 1967

Frei Agrarian Reform Act to accomplish unprecedented land expropriations the first twenty months of office, but, despite this success and major advances in campesino organization (Communal Councils) and salary increases, the peaceful "revolution" was beset by internal UP dissension 36 over methods of land redistribution. The delay in 250 establishing the Centros de Reforma Agraria (CERAS) that were to broaden the base and flexibility of asentamiento* membership and promote campesino autonomy brought out the sharp contrast between communist and socialist legal reforms and the extreme leftist MIR revolutionary demands. The latter called for immediate campesino takeover of all lands and production means from the ruling upper and bourgeois classes through whatever means necessary.

. . . the political differences among the Socialists, Communists, MAPU, and the MIR were never resolved in support of a single unified and consistent agrarian policy and that while these political debates were apparent in political and economic planning for the society as a whole, they were more pronounced and had more severe consequences in the countryside. . . . The peasants were sometimes caught between the pronouncements of UP policy on the national level and its contradictory administration by a largely pro- Christian Democratic administrative machinery on the local l e v e l . 37

This quote recalls the all-too-familiar frustration of the rising peasant expectations experienced in Ranquil in

1934 and in the post-1964 PDC regime of Eduardo Frei. Just as the Ranquil and Lonquimay comunes in Los que van quedando en el camino enjoyed initial abundance under their new land tenureship, so too the peasants under the Allende administration experienced their brief honeymoon of success.

* An asentamiento refers to the expropriated, cooper­ atively run fundo or land unit for which CORA provided technical support and training programs for the peasant over a two to five year period. 251

But the UP reached the limits of its inherited legal

authority. An opposition Congress and judiciary, in addi­

tion to internal UP ideological dissension, began to cause

a crippling slowdown in the initial drive down the "via 3 8 chilena." Allende's UP socialist revolution could not

overcome these obstacles.

The 1973 conservative-backed military coup and the

assassination of Salvador Allende completely halted agrarian

reform and instituted a regime of repression. The UP

social and economic structures, set up and put in motion

from 19 70 to 1973, had the potential for a more democratic

and productive Chile but were systematically torn down.

Expropriated fundos, by and large, reverted to former

ownership. Peasant organizations were dispersed. Certain­

ly, the "progress" of the Chilean agrarian sector, promised through the transaction politics of legal process, has been thwarted at three historical junctures: the two described by Isidora Aguirre and the last witnessed under

the repressive military regime of Pinochet. Should Chilean agrarian society have another shot at progress and autonomy, whether through communism or socialism, it seems likely that legalism would no longer be considered a viable means to that end. CHAPTER IV

ARGENTINA

From its earliest dramatic expression Argentina has been at the forefront of political theatre. As Domingo

F. Casadevall has pointed out, political theatre in

Argentina dates from the last two decades of the 19th

Century and describes efforts to seize, manipulate and transmit public power as the personal prerogative of those whose governed, specifically, the demagogic caudillo and the oligarchy who so skillfully wielded influence and patronage for personal gain.'*' Many of the early play­ wrights cited by Casadevall suffered from censorship and arrest for their allusions to specific government figures and policies, especially through caricature and satire in

"los cuadros de actualidad" and the "zarzuelas y revista criollos," which focused on the political, economic and moral climate of Argentina. 2

After the failure of the 1890 civil-military revolu­ tion, the early radical movement consistently sought to displace the conservative terrateniente oligarchy from its central position and to institute a more democratic and politically moral environment which would be responsive to 252 253

bourgeois and proletarian realities in an urban industrial

society. From 1916 to 19 30, the radicals, under Hip6lito

Irigoyen held political power. Their programs were sup­

ported by the urban bourgeoisie and moderate sectors within

the syndicalist movement. However, maintenance of social

order was considered so important that they frequently

responded to syndicalist and proletarian pressure with

repressive measures. A well-known example of this is the

Semana Tragica of 1919, a brutal attack on workers which caused hundreds of deaths. Later, the World Depression severely compounded Argentina's worsening inflation, unem­ ployment, uneven national development and unequal income distribution. The 1930 military coup put an end to the liberal democratic experiment in Argentina. The tremendous growth surges of the economy, immigration and foreign in­ vestment resulted in concomitant social confrontation between Italians and criollos, rural and urban interests, conservatives and radicals, and the bourgeois and prole­ tarian classes. These conflicts were reflected in the popular dramatic forms of the sainete and grotesco criollo.

The latter were especially critical of the liberal failure and the contradictions between rhetoric and performance in 3 the radical Irigoyen movement.

Casadevall groups early political works according to themes; the gold fever of the 1890 revolutionary period, provincial caudillismo, political aggrandizement, idealism 254

vs. political corruption, political pretension and oppor­

tunism, and national political figures. He characterizes

the political theatre as an "espejo de la conciencia popu­

lar y como activo critico de los vicios y de los errores de

los governantes"> and he also notes the generally comedic or satirical cast of realistic dramas and sainetes that depended heavily on costumbrista conventions, especially, 4 of course, in the grotesco criollo.

Frank Pauster attributes the unusual flourishing of this truly national theatre in the Rioplatense region to a combination of economic and demographic factors. He cites the Europeanization of Buenos Aires which was spurred on by a rapid material progress that propelled a wealthy bourgeois class into the Argentine economic and political arena: "cundid la mania financiera, con todo lo que significaba: las maniobras en la Bolsa, la corrupcidn econdmica y politica."^ Additionally, the waves of

Italian immigrants inflated the urban proletariat such that by 1914, 25 percent of Buenos Aires' population was of that origin.** Sociopolitical tensions arose early between this immigrant population and the criollo classes and was quickly reflected in theatre. Florencio Sanchez'

1904 drama La Gringa dealt with such tensions within a rural context. Rapid socioeconomic changes had given rise to the earlier 1884 dramatic debut of the circus pantomine

Juan Moreira by Eduardo Gutierrez. It turned an originally 255

criminal figure into a popular gauchesque hero and captured the imagination of the lower classes in its appeal to individualism and the spirit of rebellion against tradi­ tional authority. The pantomine spawned a tremendous out­ pouring of melodramatic works in the same vein, most of which were influenced in turn by European aesthetic dramatic 7 trends and currents.

El fondo social condujo a una fuerte intencidn na- turalista, con ribetes de anarquismo politico que palpitaba en los nucleos metropolitanos del Rio de la Plata. En este desarrollo influyen el Ibsen y Bracco, y el socialismo de espectciculo de Dicenta, y la suma de todas estas fuerzas es un teatro re- gionalista, con fuerte elemento de cuadro de cos- tumbres, el estudio clfnico de cardcter, y una mar- cada intencidn sociopolftica.8

Raul Hector Castagnino recognizes the same connection between national political climate and Argentine dramatic expression between 1930 and 1955, a period which encompasses the Depression, World War II and the Perdn era. Drama re­ flected the breakdown of political, economic and social cohesion during the period as theatre became "una zona de g decadencia, bastardeamiento y negatividad." Castagnino points out that in addition to tight controls of the theatre under authoritarian regimes and lack of cultural support on both federal and academic levels, by 194 7, only

20 theatres were open in Buenos Aires as opposed to 216 movie houses; where the Argentine theatre had formerly been a "tribuna idealista y sudaz," addressing the exploitation of the proletariat, the scars of caudillismo, and political 256 corruption, by 1950, Argentine playwrights were ignoring such themes.^ With the 1955 demise of the Per6n regime, young dramatists gradually came to the foreground with a socially committed, leftist-oriented theatre of clearly national character.

The 1950s' theatre of Carlos Gorostiza, Rodolfo Kusch,

Agustin Cuzzani, and Osvaldo Dragun was but the prelude to a commitment which would be fully manifested in the follow­ ing decade, not only in their later works but in those of the next generation. Carlos Gorostiza was one of the first contemporary playwrights to return to the theme of class isolation in his 1949 play, El puente. It aptly reflects the social and economic climate of the Per6n era, a concern which runs throughout his later drama, especially Vivir aqui (1964), set in a background of political terrorism, and

Los prdjimos (1966), which presents the relationships be­ tween labor, capital, and class. Kusch overtly courted urban and rural proletarian audiences, while rejecting the

Europeanized middle-class theatre and its values. He sought to reforge broken links between the people and the theatre through re-presentation of their myths and legendary heros.^ Kusch's theatre stresses the need for rebellion against oppression, as expressed, for example, in his 195 8 play, La leyenda de Juan Moreira, a reworking of the early gauchesque theatre for contemporary proletarian audiences. 257

Cuzzani's anti-realist theatre in El centroforward muri6 al amanecer (1955) focuses on capitalist economic and political exploitation of Argentine professional sectors.

This is also true for his "farseitira," Sempronio (1957).

Both rely on the isolation and imprisonment of the protag­ onist to convey the dehumanizing effect of the political 12 and social climate of Argentina.

Osvaldo Dragun's El peste viene de Melos (1956) uses

the format of a classical Greek tragedy to describe the political and economic exploitation and colonialization of the independent Melos (Argentina) by foreign powers (the

United States). In this drama the domestic capitalist bourgeois sector finds its economic goals aligned more with foreign interests than national ones and sees a capitalist- military alliance as a lucrative enterprise. Questions of state freedom and economic autonomy are central to the 13 play. Dragun's 196 3 play, Y nos dijeron que eramos inmortales, incorporates Brechtian techniques to present a caricature of the bourgeois classes, a group which is incapable of transmitting values to the younger generation.

Here Dragtin questions the worth of a military regime that trains recruits to shoot in order to maintain a social order no less bankrupt than its members. His 1966

Brechtian epic, Herdica de Buenos Aires, further pursues the anti-military theme in a more openly leftist attack on bourgeois capitalist society and materialism. This 258 sociopolitical allegory makes direct reference to the student-military clashes of the Onganfa regime.

The use of realism (Gorostiza), the absurd (Cuzzani), legend and myth (Kusch), classical Greek tragedy and the

Brechtian epic (Dragun) to convey a political comment and analysis of Argentina during the 1950s bore witness to the capacity of the Argentine playwrights to circumvent censor­ ship and limited support in order to give voice to their nation's plight and their own political consciences. By the 1960s, Argentina's independent political theatre was in full bloom and at the vanguard of dramatic political ex­ pression in Latin America. Undoubtedly, this is explained by the half-century of public awareness that class fragmen­ tation and conflict had made political turmoil a daily aspect of national life.

Osvaldo Dragun characterized the new generation usher­ ing in the 1960s as representative of "el compromiso del intelectual con la obra que vive el pais, y el contacto directo a trav£s de sus problemas y vivencias, con un 14 pdblico sensibilizado socialmente." However, by mid­ decade, many playwrights were experiencing a growing censorship. They were also beset by lack of access to the public. Their works were generally confined to the small salons of Buenos Aires' independent theatres. Some, like

Rodolfo Walsh, left the theatre and dedicated themselves to other genres due to the restrictive military regime of the 259 15 Argentine Revolution. Others continued to write plays

that went unproduced except abroad. During this decade,

drama with a political content or reference added to its

list of exponents the names of Andres Liz^rraga, Griselda

Gambaro, Carlos Somigliana, Ricardo Talesnik, German

Rosenmacher, Nester Kraly, Ricardo Halac, Rodolfo Walsh,

Ricardo Monti, Oscar Viale, Victor de los Solares and

Guillermo Gentile. Major themes threaded throughout their works included condemnation of the military, capitalism, bourgeois society, torture, imprisonment, violence, class fragmentation, isolation and conflict. The major influ­ ences on these dramatists were the Brechtian epic with its expressionistic techniques, and the Theatre of the Absurd with its focus on communication and language.

Lilian Tschudi's study of Argentine theatre from 1960 to 1972 narrowly defines "political" theatre as that drama referring to the political situation of the nation which reflects theories or ideas related to distinct forms of power and whose function is to persuade.^ Although I reject such a limited definition, as explained at the out­ set of this study, some of Tschudi's conclusions regarding the general direction of recent Argentine theatre are of interest, especially its firm defense of the local as opposed to the universal. In characterizing it, Tschudi notes the blurring of clear boundaries between the tragic and the comic, along with the diminution of a central 260 protagonist role in favor of a narrational axis increas­ ingly focused on the conflictive "mundo de Juan" or enveloping situation. Interest in national attributes or identity with a return to costumbrismo and the sainete, an accusative tone applied to the contemporary moment, plus moral and didactic intentions predominate, as do the use of farce and the grotesque, the play between the absurd and paradoxical and direct criticism, and the elaboration and intellectualization of language. ^ If we look at some of the works Tschudi uses as examples, we note at once the preponderance of political concern for the Argentina of the

1960s: Her6ica de Buenos Aires (1967) by Osvaldo Dragdn,

El grito pelado (1967) by Oscar Viale, La granada (1965) by

Radolfo Walsh, Hablemos de calzon quitado (1970) by

Guillermo Gentile, El campo (196 8) by Griselda Gambaro, and

El avidn negro (19 70) by Roberto Cossa, German Rosenmacher,

Carlos Somigliana, and Ricardo Talesnik. It is especially in reference to El avi6n negro that I find a convergence of all the directions indicated by Tschudi. It is a work she considers "political theatre," and the present chapter will focus on it.

El avion negro probably was written following the 1969

Cordobazo and was staged the following year when it won the annual Casa de las Americas theatre award. The work attracts attention for its unusual collective authorship by four well known and established Argentine contemporary 261 playwrights, Roberto Cossa, German Rosenmacher, Carlos 18 Somigliana, and Ricardo Talesnik. It is also noteworthy for its historical reflection of a political movement galvanized by the charismatic figure of Juan Perdn. Accord­ ing to Ricardo Halac, the playwrights maintain that "el teatro argentino estd ligado a la historia argentina y los 19 argentinos de hoy. ..." Their play revolves around the possible hypothetical reactions of various sectors of

Buenos Aires society to an unexpected street rally of the magnitude and fervor of those which characterized the ten years of Perdn's leadership from 1946-1955. The rally is predicated upon the rumor that Perdn has returned and will, as in the past, speak to his people from the Presidential balcony of the Casa Rosada in the Plaza de Mayo.

The political content of the play spans over 25 years, with reference to the 1945-1955 Peronist Presidency and to the historical present of the play's creation. To under­ stand these allusions and the violent reactions Perdn's imagined return provokes, it is helpful to consider briefly this period's history.

When he departed Argentina in 1955 for exile in Spain,

Perdn left behind a political messiah myth that would be- 20 come reality with his return in 1973. Perdn became

President in February of 1946, but initially came into national prominence with the 194 3 military coup which deposed the conservative oligarchy in control of the government since 1930. Perdn became Minister of Labor and

Social Welfare, Minister of War, and Vice President of

Argentina, coincident positions from which he carefully orchestrated his role as personal arbiter between labor, the military and the government bureaucracy through patron­ age, organizational manipulation, and the development of social services. His major base was labor. He organized the Confederaci6n General de Trabajadores (CGT) and en­ couraged unionization of all proletarian sectors, bringing significant wage increases, improved housing, social security, and social services to the Argentine working 21 classes. The sense of political participation and class identity nurtured among the urban proletariat, a signifi­ cant proportion of which comprised rural immigrants who had been pouring into Buenos Aires since World War I, were the positive contributions Peronism made to Argentine history. The clarifying preface to the Casa de las

Americas edition of El avi6n negro notes this contribution:

este movimiento signified cierta participacidn de la clase obrera en el poder politico y for- taleci6 en los trabajadores su conciencia de clase.22

Perdn's government was characterized as adhering to a political, economic, and social doctrine called justicialismo. It was based on a practical, popular,

Christian humanist philosophy that recognized a balance between the limited rights of the individual and the 263

limited rights of the collectivity/ a socioeconomic system

neither capitalist nor communist (i.e./ which fell into a

"third” position), and social justice. According to one

interpretation,

es la doctrina cuyo objeto es la felicidad del hombre en la sociedad humana por la armonia de las fuerzas materiales y espirituales/ individu- ales y colectivas, cristianamente valorizadas. 23

Such a flexible doctrine embracing materialism and idealism,

individualism and collectivism could take whatever politi­

cal direction deemed necessary by the government. It could

mean all things to all people since it was not constricted

to a specific ideology and hence provided a pragmatic

political lever to its creator. A number of critics cite

the lack of a concrete official ideology as an important

characteristic of Peronism and as partial evidence refut- 24 ing the equating of Peronism with fascist totalitarianism.

In 1945, Per6n had organized the Partido Laborista,

which was to become the Partido Peronista (PP) with its

men's and women's branches and its CGT center. The women's

branch was inspired and led by Evita Perdn who eventually

became the leading figure and spokesperson of that labor movement. Despite its appeal to labor, Peronism did not

preclude all support from middle-class industrialists,

entrepreneurs, politicians and the ruling oligarchy.

However, it is generally credited with pitting the pro­

letariat, the bourgeoisie and the oligarchy against each 264

other. In fact, a main feature of Per6n's political maneuvering was to encourage mass antagonism toward the oligarchy, typically characterized by Per6n as the 25 "enemy." Peron's opposition initially included the Unidn

Cfvica Radical, Conservatives, Communists, Socialists,

liberal intellectuals and students, and the bulk of the middle-class bourgeoisie. In addition to the urban and rural proletariats, his initial supporters were the mili­ tary and the Church.

Per6n had supported reinstitution of compulsory

Catholic education, public religious parades, the Church's anti-divorce stand, and championed Catholic Christian morality, thus providing considerable converts to Peronism 2 6 within the Catholic hierarchy. Evita's Welfare Founda­ tion and public defense of the poor also provided a strong personal link between Church and State.

Per6n took pains to incorporate the military into his labor-based government by awarding it cabinet and civil government posts, significant pay increases, improved quarters, additional recruitment, and hefty national budget allocations for equipment and weapons moderniza- 27 tion. Appealing to the concept of supernationalism, he brought it public prestige and a sense of identification with the native labor movement, but at the same time he made it aware that military rule depended on civilian support. To maintain control he met outward demands but 265 encouraged internal rivalries, purged major opposition leadership, and increased and strengthened the civilian police forces. Thus he undercut the military’s potential 2 8 political power. The same basic manipulative process 29 was applied to labor and the CGT.

Per6n harrassed, threatened, arrested, censored and attempted to limit and dominate his opponents, but he never completely silenced all dissent nor sought total control, 30 preferring always to manipulate. He tried and met with considerable success in redistributing political power, in establishing new criteria for access to that power and in broadening income distribution. Rarely did he abolish old structures, simply choosing to undercut traditional power.

The heavy costs of underwriting national development projects, social services, modernization of the military, and increasing wages, coupled with deteriorating world trade terms, the exhaustion of foreign reserves, rising deficits, inflation and the continued agricultural orien­ tation and dependence on beef and grain prices in the world market eventually brought Peron's government to the doors of economic crisis. It became increasingly difficult to fulfill his political promises and programs. He was forced to turn to foreign loans, aid and investments, all of which alienated labor and alarmed the military who feared that the nationalist dream of a great self-suffi­ cient industrial state was crumbling. He began to resort 266

to increasingly repressive and totalitarian measures in response to widespread criticism. Per6n cast aside

Argentina's own imperialist aspirations for Latin American hegemony and admitted North American economic influence into the Southern sphere. He had to impose wage controls and create an acceptable investment climate. The granting of oil drilling rights to the United States, efforts to indoctrinate all military ranks with justicialismo and total allegiance to Peronism, threats to form labor militias to counter increasing military factions, the closing down of opposition presses, and open warfare against the Church all led to the military coup of September 1955. It is probably true to say that the coup narrowly avoided a situation of class antagonisms which would have led to an

Argentine version of the Spanish Civil War.

Despite efforts to end Peronism in the following seventeen years, the movement continued to hold captive the expectations of large numbers of Argentines. Close con­ tact was maintained between Per6n in Madrid and his lieutenants in Buenos Aires. It was the incorporation of multiple socioeconomic sectors under a purportedly nation­ alistic drive for industrialization and world prestige which had given a sense of participation and identity to a broad range of Argentine society, and, though more cosmetic than real, it was this image and attitude that became the major obstacle for the post-Per6n military governments who 267

sought vainly to diffuse, reorient, and incorporate these

Peronist sectors into other political structures. After

1955, the Peronist Party was banned, Evita's Welfare

Foundation terminated, and the widespread public relations and promotional structures of Peronism removed. Direct

Peronist participation in elections was either banned out­ right, proscribed, or conditioned during the next decade.

Peronism served as the common denominator of the internal fragmentation which beset all sectors and ex­ pressed itself in varying alignments along the continuum between reintegration of Peronism and its complete expul­ sion. From 1955 to 1973, Argentina swung alternately between military or military-backed governments. Uncom­ promising anti-Peronists within the military, known subsequently as gorilas, interventionists, or colorados, were largely responsible for the overthrow of Arturo

Frondizi in 1962 and Arturo Illia in 1966; both Presidents were backed by Peronist military sympathizers called 31 legalists, integrationists or azules. The latter managed to thwart complete military dictatorships and oust Pedro

Aramburu in 1958, supplant Jos£ Maria Guido in 1962, and check Juan Carlos Ongania in 1970.

The move to economic individualism and reconstruction with free enterprise and foreign investment marked the abandonment of "statist nationalism" and provided the

Armed Forces, business, and land owners with a 268 32 disproportionate power given their numbers. The Peronist

labor sector was deprived of legal outlet and the bour­ geoisie was acutely divided along professional lines and

among political parties, none of which was capable of form­

ing a political concensus.

The Catholic Church experienced factionalism due to the growing Third World radicals or Tercermundistas, com­ mitted to a religious political movement that attempted to raise the poor's consciousness of their exploitation and 33 eventually to organize the urban and rural proletariats.

Tercermundistas actively participated in protest rallies, strikes, and union organization. Their movement later suffered its own crisis over conflicting urban and rural directions and policies.

The major contenders for power within civilian politi­ cal parties were the Radicals, who were severely splintered internally. The Peronists were also divided into a die­ hard syndicalist wing, a faction of intellectual middle- class politicians, and the provincial, more broadly-based neo-Peronists.• 4. 34

It was the military which ultimately moved to fill the crisis of authority, especially in 1965 and 1966 when left- wing militants added to the social turmoil and economic instability, wrecking havoc within the nation. With the institution of the "Argentine Revolution" in 1966, which placed retired General Ongania in the Presidency, all 269 political parties were banned; Congress and the provincial legislatures were dissolved; Peronists, Communists and the left in general were purged from all government participa­ tion; the Judiciary was overhauled; and repression grew.

Until the 1960s, the military conceived of its role in the traditionalist way as defender of the nation from external enemies. This has led to the usual national policy of promoting both economic self-sufficiency through indus­ trial protectionism and national heavy industry for its weaponry. It also supported state controls of the national 35 economy. Following a general trend m Latin America, by the 1960s Argentina's military policy strategically changed to an internal role as guarantor of internal security dependent upon economic development in alliance with international investment. However, consolidation of a military-industrial oligarchy had failed by 1969 due to

demands of small and middle capital and the agrarian bourgeoisie; the regional explosions that included zones of unequal economic, political and social de­ velopment; the exasperation of the wage-earners which could not be contained by the attempts at con­ ciliation on the part of the union bureaucracy; and the general discontent of the small bourgeoisie, politically expropriated and subjected to a growing impoverishment. . . .36

Terrorism, purges, strikes and guerrilla warfare increased markedly as all avenues of legal protest had been cut off with the banning of political parties in 1966 and with the suspension of the CGT's collective conventions in

1967 by the Minister of Labor, Krieger Vasena, which 270

resulted in the transference of wage controls to the

State. After the 1969 Cordobazo, the union bureaucracy

regained some of its former strength and power as it found

its interests coincident with those of political parties and the bourgeois capitalist sector, all losers to the 37 monopoly capital protected by military economic policy.

The crisis stage was reached with the Cordobazo which began with student protests and demonstrations in Cdrdoba and quickly spread across the nation, setting off major strikes. Labor, students, Peronists, Marxists, leftist guerrillas, and radical clergy battled police and military and brought the nation to a standstill in bloody civil strife. Ongania was deposed and eventually General

Alejandro Lanuesse became President in 1971. Alberto

Ciria characterized the year 1970 as one marked by urban rioting, urban guerrilla (Peronist and Marxist in origin) warfare, rampant inflation, heavy taxation, bankruptcies, underemployment and unemployment, and deterioration of health and welfare programs: "By 1970 the republic was more restless and fragmented than ever before in recent 3 8 times. It is the achievement of El avi6n negro to have captured the fragmentation and antagonism of Argentina on both structural and substantive levels. Let us investigate how Cossa, Rosenmacher, Somigliani and Talesnik accomplished this dramatic crystalization of their contemporary history. 271

The title, El avidn negro, refers to the plane on which, according to popular myth, Perdn would return to

Argentina. The play comprises twelve scenes unified by the

theme of Perdn's return and by the background presence of

the workers, manifest through their songs and voices. These are usually heard off-stage, but the workers do appear before the audience, twice as a representative collective group and once through individual representatives.

The dramatized reactions are overwhelmingly negative and antagonistic to Perdn's return and provide a basic structural theme which works dialectically with positive collective responses being evoked off-stage. The protag­ onists are generally stereotyped and typified through their professions and exaggerated language patterns. The stage directions distinguish them by occupations or origins,

Dentist, Bishop, Gallego, for example, or by their rela­ tionships with others, such as Husband, Daughter, Malo,

Bueno. These protagonists represent the general anti-

Peron population. Occasionally protagonists address each other with specific names, such as Mdnica, Marcelo,

Zabaleta, the inconsistency probably arising due to the collective authorship of the play.

The first scene, "El fantasma," takes place in the tenement room of Lucho, who daily waits until his neighbors have gone to sleep before taking out his bombo, or drum, which he plays quietly. He evokes the by-gone days when 272

Per6n was in power and his drum would call the workers into

the streets led by a group of players and singers, called

the murga; the drum would mark out political chants to the 39 beat of soccer chant rhythms. Lucho's drumsticks are

strangely comical given the boxing gloves he has put on

them to muffle their sound. The idea of the

workers' stifled voices is instantly symbolized in this

image. When Lucho opens his mouth he makes the noises of

the crowd.

Lucho is constantly attentive to possible protests

from his next-door neighbors. Here the suggestion of the

separation between the present proletarian masses and the

former Peronist movement is introduced and made implicit

in this thematic antagonism between Lucho and his neighbors

and in their structural separation emphasized by the tene­ ment walls, which symbolically separate the current workers

from the romanticized Peronist workers (Lucho) of the past.

The allusion is subtle and somewhat vague at first but

becomes clearer and more direct in subsequent scenes and

the workers' songs. The workers symbolically escape their marginal place in society as they leave the tenements and move into the streets where they pass in front of the win­ dows of nonproletarian sectors with whom they will be

exhorted to engage in open "dialogue" at the play's end.

This opening scene, then, anticipates the fragmentation of

Argentine society dramatized in the following scenes. It 273 suggests the futility of expecting Perdn's return to unite past and present proletarian structures.

Lucho suddenly interrupts his playing to address an invisible person with reverent respect as "mi general," thus evoking Perdn's presence. He relives moments from the past with his imagined guest. Lucho recalls he was once invited to the Casa Rosada and seated in chairs normally designated for ambassadors; Lucho demonstrates here a clear consciousness of class distinctions and of Perdn's ability to make the worker (the descamisado or shirtless one) feel at home and aware of his own identity.

This day, Lucho recalls the demonstrations of 1952 and gives voice to the chants which contained the essence of Perdn's political stances at that time: "Ni yanquis, ni marxistas, peronistas," "Los curas al convento, los curas al convento"; "Manana es San Perdn, que trabaje el patrdn."

The first chant is a direct reference to the nationalist

"third" position of Peronism between capitalism and com­ munism. The second chant conveys the antagonism which had grown between Perdn and the Church since 1951. The last chant refers to the 1945 attempt to depose Perdn from his three government posts, during which time he was jailed briefly, provoking the first major mass demonstration by labor on his behalf on October 17. The following day had been declared a national holiday by Perdn with full pay, as had several other saints' days on the religious calendar. 274

With Per6n's release, the paid holiday was upheld and the

date became known popularly as El Dfa de San Juan. The

drum, the chants and the changing volume of the crowd lend

a ritual air to this first scene which evokes the popular mass rites rendered in grateful homage to "San Per6n"

fifteen to twenty years prior.

Lucho recalls the fifteen years he and Per6n have been

shut up. He discusses the growing restlessness of the young who want to take actively to the streets. The

allusions here are to the militant groups of the late 196 0s and 1970 who had been inciting riots, demonstrations,

strikes and acts of subversion and even terror to protest 40 the Ongania dictatorship. The 1969 Cordobazo was a case in point. Lucho wonders what it would be like to whip up the crowds again. His tone is antagonistic and gleeful as he remembers the ire of the oligarchy at such demonstra­ tions in the past: "cY la cara de los oligarcas. . .? 41 (Rie) . . . iLos cagamos, mi general! jLos cagamos!"

Lucho*s drumming increases in volume with his enthusiasm and he asks the General to come out into the streets. The stage suddenly darkens leaving a single spotlight on Lucho in the center and thus creating "una presencia intemporal, casi irreal." (16) Lucho beats the drum slowly as figures emerge from the shadows to join him singing. Quietly and contained at first, their song increases in volume and joyful movement as the light increases its radius to 275 incorporate more and more marchers. This final effect depends dramatically on the acoustic tension developed between Lucho and his protesting neighbors. Lucho's volume rises and recedes according to their banging. The workers of the current historical moment join with those of the former Peronist movement as the lights symbolically destroy the separating walls between them. The voiceless workers must rely on the former Peronist movement's syndicalist structures (i.e., the CGT) to have a recognized political voice under Onganfa's comunitarismo soledarista (see page

306 below), but it is posited that that will not be a satisfactory nor final solution. This idea becomes clearer in the third and fourth songs, as we shall see, but it is presented here at the play's outset.

What was begun as a three-level temporal weaving between the historical present, the imagined present (Lucho and the General), and the recollected historical past, ends in a synthesis of past, present and future, of the real and the imagined. The playwrights project present historical fantasy on past historical reality and initiate their questioning of the viability of imposing past sociopoliti­ cal structures on present ones.

The collective song that separates this initial scene from the rest of the play and at the same time provides thematic and structural unity with it is the "Cancidn del nuevo 17," a declaration of intent to celebrate an 276

"orderly" procession to the Plaza de Mayo to bathe in the

fountains, watch fireworks, hear the murga, eat bread and

drink hot coffee and cold beer. Tomorrow (October 18) the

oligarchy— the bosses— will work: "trabajar^ el patrdn."

The idea of a cleansing ceremony of renewal, of a common man's eucharist, is suggested.

The second scene, "La sirvienta," presents an upper middle-class couple discussing the wife's alleged account of massing workers in the streets. Since the husband finds no mention of the event in the morning paper, her story can be nothing more than an exaggeration. The husband refuses to get upset because "cuatro negros de mierda decidieron 4 2 no trabajar." (23) A telephone call from his mother-in- law changes his mind, and he becomes concerned as his wife relates the joy and ebullience of the crowds, their intent to wash their faces in the Plaza fountains, and to hear

"him." The "Cancidn del nuevo 17" confirms his horrified suspicions that "he" has returned and that life will re­ gress to overcrowded minibuses, the smell of sweat, propa­ ganda banners, the Peronist newspaper £poca, men with mustaches at the ministry, vulgar farces in the theatre, shirts, and presidential portraits on every wall. As he talks his wife begins to feel "cold" and shuts and locks the windows from the outside noise of the massing crowds.

What the playwrights present here are the symbols and psychological residue of the Peronist culture from the 277 perspective of an individual who symbolizes one of the socioeconomic class sectors in opposition to Peronism.

Fifteen years have not mitigated the couple's class con­ sciousness and disdain for the proletariat, as affirmed when the servant, Emilia, leaves after removing the coffee service. The wife gives voice to her disapproval of the girl's purported but unexhibited arrogance. The husband warns her to cloak her feelings lest the girl quit to seek a higher paying factory job or condemn them for their anti-Peronism, which would create a terrible uproar and diminish his chances for a bid at the ministerial level.

The wife plays along and ingratiates herself to Emilia when the latter returns. Class antagonism, hypocrisy, and lack of communication— here between husband and wife and between the couple and their servant— are thematically introduced in this scene and later woven throughout the play.

Scene three, "Companero," symbolizes the union bureaucracy leadership which has risen from humble origins and become corrupted and co-opted by the capitalist life­ style. The union leader or boss is seated at his desk in shirt sleeves drinking coffee and devouring breakfast rolls with an exaggerated lack of table manners belying his rude upbringing. He hastily deposits the food in a desk drawer and puts on his jacket to dress for his

"professional" role as the secretary ushers in an archi­ tect carrying a model relief plan of the first union 278

cemetery in South America. The plan is basically a barren

field with a single large cross which is exaggerated in its primitive design. The already established lack of decorum

continues as the union leader describes with pleasure the

impending death of a union member fallen from a scaffold

that will enable an early inauguration of the cemetery.

The architect presumably has won his contract by building the union leader a private swimming pool with leftover construction materials designated for union contracts.

The next visitor breaks in unannounced. Realizing it is a member of the union rank and file, the union boss quickly struggles out of his jacket for his descamisado role. He does not give the visitor a chance to explain his visit, instantly assuming a jovial but defensive pos­ ture and verbally supporting union demands for an 8 percent wage increase. Despite the union boss' almost determined misunderstanding, the excited union member finally gets across his request that the union leader direct the rank and file to the Plaza de Mayo for the pro-Peron demonstra­ tion, purportedly ordered by Per6n. The incredulous and frightened union leader attempts to ascertain the origin of the order (again, disbelief in the spoken word) and feigns his intended participation. The union member leaves singing the "Cancidn del nuevo 17," which unites this scene with the foregoing dramatic action. 279

Once more hypocrisy appears as a theme wedded to that

of class distinctions and conflicts. The sense of social

fragmentation is underscored by communication breakdown which occurs when unexpected ideas threaten a break in

normal order and the status quo. Hence, in the second

scene, the husband refused to believe a threat to his

socioeconomic status quo that could not be verified in the

"official" media. Likewise, the union member's words are misinterpreted and glossed over by the union boss intent on proving he is doing his job. He is fearful that he might be called into account for his shady dealings which would jeopardize his access to upward social mobility.

Since the proscription of the Peronist Party,

Argentine union bureaucracy has been described as having two functional roles: the professional or bureaucratic role of negotiator of labor's wages and working conditions and the political role as representative of the working 4 3 class. The roles frequently conflict, since, as a political exponent, the union bureaucrat must continuously seek out coalitions with other social sectors and compro­ mise in realms of wages and working conditions to maintain union participation in national political power. We see the union boss in this vignette caught between these two roles, his "jacket" half on and half off.

The humor of "La sirvienta" and Companero" lies in the communication breakdown and the exaggeration of class- 280

associated behavior patterns; the satire lies in the

hypocrisy of appearances; the political criticism in the

class isolation and antagonism. So far, the level of

humor has evolved from that of an upper-class situation

comedy to a broader physical comedy in the labor bureaucracy

scene. In the following sequence the progression moves

into pure farce conveyed through language and emotion. The

shift from realism to the absurd is gradual.

"El inversor" deals with the corporate business sector

and focuses on an attempt to coax a North American into

signing a contract. The scene symbolizes the trend to

foreign investment initiated by Per6n in the 1950s as a

stop-gap economic measure and institutionalized as a major

pillar of economic policy in the succeeding military and

civilian regimes from Frondizi to Onganfa.

While entrepreneur Gonzalez awaits the pending visit

of his potential investor, he listens to a tape designed

to teach English for business purposes to Spanish speakers.

The tape conveys incorrect and exaggerated pronunciation

and contains errors in morphology and syntax. It suggests

popular expressions considered appropriate at the closing of a deal. The most amusing of these is: "This is like

Tom Mix and Martin Fierro riding in de [sic] same horse

. . ." (38) Tom Mix was a 1930s Hollywood movie cowboy who did not survive as a contemporary American culture hero. The pairing of this transitory celluloid figure 281 with the legendary Argentine literary figure, Martin

Fierro, provides a particularly inept and anachronistic, and hence humorous, analogy.

The humor at this point has arisen from a plausible and realistic lack of cultural and linguistic understand­ ing, but farce now gradually takes over as Gonzalez hears the crowds and recognizes the potential threat it implies for his investor and their deal. Exploding tear gas bombs and shouts upset and irritate Gonzalez, who becomes ex­ tremely anxious as he sees the investor arriving by car.

Beside himself with anger that the protestors have chosen this particular day to demonstrate, he screams a mixture of Spanish and English orders to the police, almost falling out of the window in the process. The linguistic comedy continues when Porter, the investor, enters and addresses

Gonzalez in Spanish and Gonzdlez replies in English.

Mdnica serves as interpreter as both men communicate in a combination of Spanish and English through her.

Porter asks for an explanation of the throngs in the street and is told they are just the "normal" crowds of a heavily populated city. At this point Gonzdlez adopts the speech patterns and gestures of a Mexican as typically por­ trayed by Hollywood. The Argentine entrepreneur tries to change the topic to the contract, but further explosions in the street interrupt. Gonzdlez asserts they are part of a holiday celebration. Porter, intrigued, immediately wants 282

to join the crowds outside. More explosions send the now

desperate Gonzalez into the startled Mdnica's arms, with

whom he starts to dance the tango in an effort to detract

from the obvious rioting. Between Gonzalez' ridiculous

anglicized Spanish and his Hollywood portrayal of himself,

alternately dancing the tango and waving the contract under

Porter's nose, the latter concludes the Argentine is insane

on the accurate grounds that there is no "seguriti." He

exits, leaving a broken Gonzalez mumbling the ironic line

"Me duele por el pais. . ." (49) To nationalist Argentine

forces his sell-out to foreign investors would, of course,

be considered an act of betrayal.

The satire rests on the figure of Gonzalez, yet an­

other vehicle of hypocrisy and corruption. Cultural cor­

ruption is evidenced in his patterning his image on foreign

cinematic distortions to the point he becomes his own

caricature. Again, role playing is the key vehicle of

hypocrisy. In the following phrases rehearsed prior to

Porter's arrival, the English transmits the apparent real­

ity and the Spanish the actual reality of the business

relationship. The distance between is a measure of the hypocrisy and the parasitism:

Theare is the contrat, mister Porter. . . Dame los cien mil d6lares, mister Porter. . . y despuds te vas al carajo, mister Porter. . . (41)

The linguistic breakdown provides the immediate humor, here a verbal farce. It is deepened by the cultural myth 283

taken seriously which conveys the satire. Once more, the

political criticism rests on isolation (national and cul­

tural) and capitalist dependency.

The tenor of the next collective workers' song

abruptly ends the light farcical humor of "El inversor"

and introduces a serious tone. The song, "Esta marcha se

formo," explains the impetus of the march. It has formed

because of hunger, suffering, broken promises, resentment,

quarrels, past memories, present bitterness, tainted

bread, empty stomachs, and beatings. It is meant to show

the upper classes that the Argentine people's silence is not to be interpreted as a sign of stupidity or muteness.

The first song declared their intent to celebrate the

longed-for return of Per6n and affirmed their identity.

This song explains their motivation for demonstrating and ends with a veiled warning that their limits have been reached.

The fifth scene, "El orden," deals with the inter­ rogation of a man by a civil servant. There are two interrogation scenes in the play. In neither is the identity of the interrogators clear since titles and uni­ forms are absent. The interrogators are known only as

Funcionario, Bueno, and Malo. However, certain allusions to the military in these scenes might indicate their asso­ ciation with that sector. 284

The subject of "El orden" is the establishment of individual ideological commitment. The interrogator seeks to penetrate any inconsistencies in the accused man's explanation of his presence among the marchers, which the accused claims happened to him by chance. The internal lack of logic in the order of the questions and accusations provides the source of humor, and a double play results in relation to the scene's title. Order is satirized themat­ ically in the question content and structurally in the absurd non sequiturs of illogical leaps to false conclu­ sions and contradictions, which drive the accused to a confused desperation. For example, the interrogator posits that the man is a nationalist and, therefore, must be against imperialism. If this is so, does it mean he does not support international cooperation through military missions, loan agreements and the OAS? Uncertain of the expected reply, the man admits he understands the need for international organizations in which one nation predominates.

Does this mean, asks the interrogator, that he sanctioned the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia? The jump is absurd and, unwittingly, the man finds himself defending the need for violence in defense against repression. Of course, the interrogator immediately seizes on this to accuse him of support of the workers and their violence.

It must be remembered that the Onganfa dictatorship sought to maintain law and order for a stable investment 285

climate and to repress subversion and terrorist chaos.

Under Per6n the military avowed staunch nationalism and

anti-imperialism. Under Onganfa the military welcomed

international "cooperation" that provided investment capi­

tal for growth and profit necessary for its own maintenance.

The satire on language and labels is implicit here. What

is "imperialism" one era becomes "cooperation" the next,

depending on the needs of the moment.

The scene ends with an official clarification by the

interrogator of current government policy in Argentina. It

is so qualified as to be rendered ideologically meaningless and full of contradictions. Thus, the government is

"deeply" Christian but without "exaggeration," a proponent of international cooperation but within "limits," and a supporter of self-determination but in "certain cases" only. The final irony is that the accused is condemned for his "doubts." The satiric humor lies in the distorted logic and verbal games of entrapment carried to an absurd level.

Martin Esslin's analysis of dramatic violence refers to the frequent use of psychological violence in modern theatre. The manipulation of someone to make him go in a direction counter to his choice is considered by Esslin a 44 form of violence. In this case the violence is softened by its comic expression. However, the theme of violence recurs two scenes later and comes to predominate by the end of the play. 286

"Comit£ Central" takes the drama into the realm of the political party sector, this time to the Communist Party's central committee headquarters. As in the previous vignette, the time reference is to a post-demonstration event. From the outset, it is clear that the treatment is on the level of farce. Three old men in their seventies, wrapped in shawls and wearing berets, sit beside three spitoons on broken-down chairs in an old-fashioned dusty and gloomy office. Each represents an ethnic sector indi­ cated by his name. None is a native-born Argentine. Lan­ guage again plays a humorous role, especially in the case of Tano whose thick Italian accent and inability to write in Spanish necessitate his dependency on Gallego to write the joint political statement which the three have come together to issue in response to the demonstration in the streets. Their ethnic diversity is complemented by their ideological diversity which inhibits their fulfillment of the task at hand. Ruso suggests they consider Lenin's response to a soldier-peasant uprising, almost sixty years prior, for guidelines. Tano wants to affirm support for a peasant-worker alliance, but Gallego resists this idea.

The three, hopelessly out of touch with their historical moment, wander off into a polemic on the proletariat as the revolutionary vanguard with the peasants as a reserve, all of which causes a round of good Marxist self-criticism about their own failure to establish firm rural organizations 287

and policies. Finally, they decide to issue an appeal

which condemns Nazis (Ruso's position), fascism (Tano's

position), and Francoism (Gallego's position). Ultimately,

their call for unity is to workers, peasants, students,

businessmen, small proprietors, the military, entrepreneurs,

the "progressive clergy" (a reference probably to the

tercermundistas), intellectuals and all "honest Argen­

tines," to wit, everyone. As in the previous scene, the

ideology behind the statement is nebulous and absurd.

The authors have presented a satirical micro-history

of Argentina's Communist Party which has been devoted

historically to superimposing European socioeconomic devel­

opment on a nonanalagous Argentine class structure. The

Party has been rendered ineffective due to internal frag­

mentation over whether to follow the Third International

guidelines to align and work through bourgeois coalitions

and political fronts or solely through its own organization.

The urban emphasis, as opposed to the rural, has typified

other Latin American Communist Parties in addition to

Argentina's. Because anarchist, socialist and Marxist

ideologies were associated with foreign immigrants, there was a tendency for second generation Argentine families to

reject them as "foreign" and therefore not compatible with

aspirations toward a nationalist Argentine identity, an­

other inhibiting factor to the growth and impact of the

Communist Party in Argentina. By 1969, young Marxist 288

extremists had organized wings independent of the Communist

Party and were dedicated to revolutionary acts of subver­

sion and strike provocation, frequently working through

Peronist extremist movements or in cooperation with them.

The ''nonrevolutionary" and directionless image of the

Argentine Communist Party is captured here through the ponderous and absurd deliberation of the three old men with

their lack of unity (ethnically, linguistically, and

ideologically), their external formulas, and their anachronistic references.

In the next scene verbal humor continues, but emphasis on physical farce is carried to the grotesque level and thus marks a tonal and directional change in the play. The initial humor of "El dentista" results from the gestures and impeded verbal communication of the female patient due to a combination of novocaine and the dentist's refusal to heed her obvious pain and protest. Sudden noises in the street give her reprieve as the dentist goes to open the window. The marchers' refrains and the drumbeat become clearly audible. The dentist reacts with alarm and in­ credulity, the patient with a gesture of joy and enthusiasm showing her desire to join in. The dentist begins to drill, his anger rising, oblivious to her movements of acute pain. He pokes at her teeth in a staccato rhythm paralleling the chants outside, which he repeats. Com­ pletely beside himself, he begins to rant about the twenty 289 years he has spent sacrificing to establish his practice, to buy his own office, his own drill, his own telephone.

He screams he is not an animal but an educated man who goes to the theatre, understands Bergman films, and reads

La Prensa. He begins to hum Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, unconsciously drilling deeper and unaware of the weakening motions of the patient, whom he literally drills to death.

Suddenly he realizes with horror, anger, hysteria and desperation what has happened. Clearly the marchers are to blame. During his exclamations he trembles, froths at the mouth, and screams he is a professional: " Tengo mi casa, mi coche, mi torno!. . . iSoy un professional!. . . JNegro de mierda!” (76) Reduced to an emotional bestiality con­ sonant with the bestial act he has committed, his claim to be civilized becomes acutely ironic.

With this scene the play moves into the grotesque and the violent, not only violence between characters within the play, but social violence implicit in material depend­ ency that, when exaggerated, as in the case of the dentist, dehumanizes the individual, bestializing him into a state where social relationships break down. The communication breakdown, exaggerated on the verbal plane by the patient's physical inability to articulate her needs, is but a symp­ tom of a social breakdown, the roots of which in this scene indicate fear of lost access to material goods and com­ forts. 290

The action of murder by a dentist's drill is an absurd

idea in itself. It is made acceptable, if not palatable, to the audience because it is unpremeditated and because its exaggeration places it beyond the immediately realistic and possible. However, it does produce a shock effect in its distortion and violence.

It is brute violence to which the next sequence, the third workers' song, "Este es el pueblo," refers. The defiant song asserts the identity of the worker and threatens the oligarchy that if there is resistance to the demonstration the workers will be ready. They are the majority and brute violence has taught them strength. They no longer can be stopped. This song presents future intent by the workers to maintain pressure to be heard. In addi­ tion to the strident tenor of this intent, a more important political point, briefly alluded to in the opening scene, is made: "Hemos salido por el regreso,/pero con eso, no va a alcanzar." (77) Uniting in march for the return of Perdn will not be enough to meet the needs and demands of the workers. Two points are of interest: Perdn is not directly mentioned and his return will not resolve the plight of the contemporary Peronists. The dramatists reject the viabil­ ity of such a solution, a point which they amplify in the fourth song and which will be analyzed in more detail below. Hence, it is not by chance that the workers in the play appear by song and voice for it is their suppressed 291 voice which is the focus of the dramatic intent. One notes the absence of humor or satire in the songs.

The violence initiated in "El dentista" and referred to in the third song becomes more conscious and directed in "Los gorilas." The title is a political reference to the

Colorado militarist who believes in

. . . the forcible institution of Liberalism, who is extremely anti-Peronist, and is willing to see the military enforce political measures on the nation. . . .45

After the 1962 overthrow of the Frondizi government, an intense rivalry arose within the military between the gorilas or colorados and the azules, with the former stag­ ing a coup attempt in 1963 to establish a military dicta­ torship. As in "Comit£ Central," political movements are satirized in "Los gorilas," this time within the military.

Therefore, the satire is now directed against the other end of the political spectrum. Again, the protagonists are caricaturized; they are two old men, one wrapped in a lap rug in a wheelchair and the other confined to a hospital bed on wheels pushed by a nurse who periodically gives him resuscitating serum injections. A third male, Rosato, works with guns, brass knuckles and clubs in the background, goose-stepping and shadow-boxing. He is young, respectable and well-dressed. After the comical rantings of Viejo 1 in the wheelchair, who keeps nodding off in mid-sentence, and the greeting between Viejo land Viejo 2, marked by one 292

falling out of the chair and the other suffering a seizure,

Viejo 1 explain's Rosato's immigrant background, educa­

tion, two-year long unemployment, and faith in the system:

"iPero le llego su oportunidad! . . .Su fe en los valores

tradicionales tuvo la recompensa que merecia: iahora

vende zapatos!" (84) The old man has trained Rosato to

fear for his job and to respond at command to "defender el

lugar que ocupa." (84) Rosato has pulled out a life-size

manikin dressed as a typical descamisado on which he

"works out." A grotesque sequence occurs when Viejo 1

commands Rosato to attack the manikin. Rosato undergoes

a process of self-bestialization reminiscent of the

dentist's. So intense is Rosato's involvement in his

brutish attack that he has to be called off several times.

The approaching sound of the drum and the crowds sends

the three into battle readiness to halt chaos, injustice,

demagoguery, infamy, and "mal gusto." Viejo 1 brandishes

a sword and shouts they are to protect traditions, industry,

homes, credit, stocks, workers, servants, prostitutes, and

all that is "lo nuestro." Viejo 2 uses his serum bottle as

a grenade and Rosato mans the machine gun at the attic window.

The scene synthesizes all previous forms of humor:

farce, caricature, black humor, the grotesque, and the

absurd. It brings to a climax the gradual build-up to violence as a political response to the demonstrators and 293

Perdn's return. The themes of national values, satirized

in "El orden," and of bourgeois materialism, satirized in

"El dentista," reappear. The gorilas were commonly asso­

ciated with ultraconservative economic policy that pro­

tected their extensive business and banking interests,^

so "lo nuestro" has a direct historical reference.

Additional par: ileling of scenes occurs with "Com­

panero 2" where the collective case is emphasized in con­

trast to the individual case of the initial "Companero" model and internal betrayal is satirized. A group of workers awaits their representative. Presumably they wait

in the street since the demonstrators join them there

later. Nervous and hesitant, the workers break into

applause upon their spokesman's arrival (Companero) who

sings that their leader "hard la gran limpieza." (90)

They are anxious to join the march to the Plaza de Mayo, but Companero detains them with rhetoric in an attempt to

convince them to return home and let him deal with the oligarchy. To convince them he produces a letter (again,

the written word's superiority), purportedly from Per6n,

asking them to await further instructions. The request elicits surprise, disfavor and suspicion. In the distance the drum and marchers can be heard. The group hesitates until the murga enters headed by Lucho. The marchers

surge over Companero, ignoring his rhetoric and feigned 294

enthusiasm, and are joined by the group of workers in

singing the fourth collective song.

By 19 70, the CGT union bureaucracy had become inter­ nally split into factions opposing and accepting the mili­ tary regime over the appointment of Krieger Vasena as

Labor Minister. Krieger Vasena was accused of selling out labor when he proscribed the CGT's traditional bargaining and negotiating powers in 1967. The dual professional- political role of the union bureaucracy coupled with internal fragmentation within the CGT are again targets in this satire.

The fourth collective song, "Aqui estcin, dstos son," once more treats worker identification. The "worker" has suffered in shanty towns and is the true descamisado who has nothing to hope for and so nothing to lose. The workers in El avion negro distinguish their movement from non­ proletarian sectors and reject coalition:

No queremos a los otros Ni personas honorables, ni nos quieren a nosotros. yiros finos, tragasables,

Ni politicos, ni artistas, abogados, lenguaraces, ni milicos, ni dentistas. ex ministros, capataces...

Ni tenderos, ni industriales, Aqu£ dstan, dstos son, Ni dirigentes gremiales, los que vienen del montdn. (94)

The dramatists deviate in this song from historical fact in their strictly proletarian composition of the march, given

Peronism's broader compositional base, both under Perdn and 4 7 m 1970. After the 1969 Cordobazo, the CGT joined with 295

the bourgeois and business sectors in programmatic pacts

and, according to Marxist critic Juan Carlos Portantiero, 4 8 was then aligned with the capitalist system. Of course,

the play is a satire based on an overtly exaggerated and

distorted presentation of a then hypothetical future possibility and makes no claim to be documentary, although other political references and allusions in the play do have a consistently verifiable historical base. However, precisely in the seriousness and the historical deviation of the song may one find the playwrights' overall intent in El avi6n negro. Two stanzas indicate and underline the absence and exclusion of Peron from their march:

Aunque muchos dicen ser s6lo son los que aqui ven.

Los que empiezan a pensar que no hay nada que esperar. (94, 95)

Coupled with the lines from the third workers' song that

Per6n's return "no va a alcanzar," the separation of the

Peronistas from Per6n becomes apparent. Neither the con­ tinuation of the Ongania military dictatorship not its moderating alternative position posited by the comunitarismo solidarista that would allow Per6n's return to give politi­ cal expression to the people is acceptable. It is a myth to believe Per6n would be the people's voice given the last years of his rule. It is also a myth to believe that his role as "arbiter" between military, oligarchy and 296

proletariat would be synonymous with that of a proletarian

"spokesman." The military-oligarchy alliance would con­

tinue (as in reality transpired after Perdn's 1973 return)

and the people would pass from one dictatorship to another

(Ongania to Lanuesse). The Peronists of 1970 are not those

of 1955. Both "Companero" scenes allude to the changing

proletarian organization and alliances and to the co­

optation of the Peronist CGT leadership and bureaucracy by

the capitalist sector, which is the point made in

Portantiero1s 1973 article. The playwrights imply that

Perdn's return would provide only a short-run solution to

the people's need for political voice and that Perdn and

Peronism are no longer truly of the workers.

"Las perchas" serves as a forum for public statements

from the Church, the Armed Forces, business and the

bureaucracy, plus a comment from the man-on-the-street in

response to the demonstrators. The same actor plays all

five parts, peeling off identifying uniforms in turn and hanging them on the clothes tree. In the final speech he remains "pathetically naked." In each case, the sector represented is stereotyped through a satire of the rhetoric with which it is commonly associated. The bishop questions and posits, manipulating through brotherly suggestion. In contrast, the general asserts, directs and warns authori­ tatively. The businessman formulates through a speech filled with long sentences of parenthetic and serialized 297 clauses. The bureaucratic technocrat, an economist, con­ fuses through one long, convoluted, conditioned, jargonized sentence. The man-on-the-street, naked literally in his ignorance, wants to know why everyone is complaining since cars and T.V.s abound and there is enough food to give the

Biafrans. His speech is filled with lower-class porteno slang.

The bishop suggests the worker look beyond earthly factionalism to life after death. The general demands order, responsibility and trust from the worker so that national moral and material greatness may be achieved. The businessman informs the worker the economic pie must be enlarged before it can be distributed. The technocrat pre­ sents the worker as an absurdly incomprehensible defini­ tion of production costs. The common man tells the worker he has nothing to complain about. The worker is thus asked to hope, obey, wait, believe, and ignore through each sector's rhetorical formula. In none of the five statements is a direct solution and response made to the worker's demands. Words serve only to placate (Church), to admonish (Military), to deceive (Business), to confuse

(Bureaucracy), and to avoid (Man-on-the-street), but they do not solve or resolve.

Role playing and hypocrisy, developed from the first scene of the play, become the major focus of the second- to-last sequence, "La familia." The set is the living-room 298

of an upper-class family, who hear and comment on the marchers passing by their open window, which the daughter

refuses to shut. It is explained that the workers have

come from "su lugar," but the alarmed parents will not

define the meaning of the refrain "cinco por uno" repeated by the daughter. The line was made famous by Perdn in

1955, a strategic error made while fomenting the crowds to violence in an effort to counter his military critics with

the threat of labor militias:

Hemos de restablecer la tranquilidad, entre el gobierno, sus instituciones y el pueblo, por la accidn del gobierno, de las instituciones y del pueblo mismo. La consigna para todo peronista, estd aislado o dentro de una organizacidn, es con- testar a una accidn violenta con otra mds violenta. jY cuando uno de los nuestros caiga, caerdn cinco de los de ellosl4^

An attempted coup against Perdn, inspired by military dis­ sidents, caused several hundred civilian deaths in the 50 Plaza de Mayo. The "cinco por uno" speech refers to that event. It alarmed the anti-Perdn liberal and Catholic bourgeoisie, as well as the military, and did much to galvanize the noncommitted to the final overthrow of Perdn on September 20, 1955.

A demonstrator grabs the daughter through the window, but her father ignores her screams and tells her to go along with the worker. The nervous mother plays along as indicated by her husband. A second demonstrator appears in the doorway and demands food. At her husband's urging, 299

the mother complies. The father goes to replace the door and asks his petulant and homosexual son to shut and lock the window. The boy decides to parody Per6n addressing the masses through the window, pledging to be their savior:

" IYo soy lo que ustedes siempre han necesitado: una reina!"

(108) The second demonstrator, returning from the kitchen with his arm familiarly around the mother, pushes the

"queen" out the window. Once more the husband indicates his wife should follow the demonstrator, and they exit, the latter's hand now suggestively on her buttocks. The father rushes to lock the windows and turn out the lights to create the effect that no one is at home. Of course, there is only the house, the material possessions, left to protect.

The father's total compromise with the physical safety of his family, his appeasement of the demonstrators, and his lack of action are more violent and brutal than the suggested violence of the demonstrators. The scene is filled with tension relieved only by the comic exaggeration of the son's homosexuality, the wife's subservience, and the husband's ridiculous protective measures with doors and locks. Nor is the contained, implicit violence couched in farce as it was in "El dentista" or in "Los gorilas," where the grotesque also entered to remove the violence from a realistic context. Here the violence is threaten­ ing and chilling. 300

Until this juncture, the dramatic action has been

couched in comically absurd, ludicrous, farcical and grotesque contexts. Scenes have been brief and of rapid

tempo. Now there is a decided change. This scene is

lengthier, slower-paced, plausibly realistic and threaten­

ing. For the dramatists' ultimate scene to be successful,

"La familia" may be necessary for a credible transition from the comic to the serious. Preparation for this trans­ fer has occurred in the theme of class vengeance and violence introduced in the fourth workers' song, alluded to in the "cinco por uno" line, and intensified in the following transitional song. Also contributing to the transition are the series of mounting shock effects: the drilling to death of the patient, Rosato's ravaging of the dummy, the naked figures of "Las perchas," and, finally, the introduction of homosexuality and the possibility of forced sexual relations implied in "La familia." Transi­ tion between the comic grotesque and the serious grotesque, a distinction of expression, is made dramatically credible by "La familia."

The serious tone of "La familia" remains consistent with that of the workers' songs. The connection appears intentional. It is in the songs that the dramatists most directly make their political comments. The father figure of "La familia" and his family enter into dialogue with the workers, thematically through their conversations and 301

structurally through the workers' first physical appearance

on the stage in direct contact with the oligarchy. The

"cooperation" between both sectors in this scene is based

on the threat of potential violence. One is instantly

reminded of Egon Wolff's Los invasores. One also recalls

Per6n's manipulations pitting workers and oligarchy

against each other from 194 3 to 1955. Such Peronist dia­

logues of the past were only partially beneficial for the workers, and the implication is that the same result will

hold in the contemporary moment. "La familia" depicts what the third and fourth songs implied: the workers

appear in support of Perdn and enter in cooperation with

Peronism's dialogue with the oligarchy La familia) and military sectors. However, separation between the workers and Peronism and its bedfellows is fundamental to the political reality of contemporary Argentina.

As the set for "La familia" is pushed off-stage by the murga, the latter repeat the last lines of the fourth song, "Aqui estan,/dstos son,/ los que vienen del montdn,"

(95) and it becomes apparent that the songs also build to prepare for violence. The fifth song, "Cancidn del Chupe-

Chupe," develops the idea of the descamisados1 violence and revenge in full scale:

Los palos que nos pegan/ los tiene que pagar.

Las balas que nos tiran/ las van a lamentar. 302

Los muertos que nos matan/ los tienen que pagar. • ••••• El odio que cultivan/ lo van a cosechar. (110,111)

Violence begets violence, "cinco por uno." The lines cited above, repeated at intervals during the song, convey a pounding, insistent tempo and carry to a climax the emo­ tional charge of the descamisados, which has been intensi­ fying as the play progresses. The difference in tone between "Cancion del Nuevo 17," sung on a lighted stage with its festive air, and "Cancidn del Chupe-Chupe," sung on a darkened stage with its pulsing threat dramatically measures the emotional distance traveled by the demonstra­ tors passing the many windows in the streets outside and creates a climactic tension.

The final scene, "Las torturas," combines the absurd and the grotesque in a violent finale of verbal and physi­ cal abuse. The underlying and powerful seriousness of the dramatic action marks a sharp contrast with the first lightly comical scenes. Two men, Bueno and Malo, one dressed in black and the other in a white smock and cap, prepare to see the next "patient" waiting in line outside.

A male nurse sweeps the floor near a bed. The impression is of a hospital clinic. The theme of role-playing is fully developed as each decides to take the part of either the bad or the good guy. The "patient" next in line has to be coaxed verbally and eventually physically onto the stage. It is the same descamisado manikin from "Los 303 gorilas," present here in order to be interrogated about his participation in the demonstration. Bueno treats him intimately and confidentially, using verbal pressure to solicit a voluntary confession. Malo treats him harshly and physically to solicit a forced confession. Both approaches are psychologically manipulative and violent if we accept

Martin Esslin's definition (see page 285 above).

The thematic threads of verbal breakdown, rhetoric, psychological manipulation, and physical brutality are united in exaggeration and distortion to the grotesque level. Tension builds as Bueno gradually loses control of his benign verbal role and becomes progressively aggressive, crossing over into Malo's abusive and physical territory, which creates additional tension between the two inter­ rogators. The scene parallels "El orden" and continues the brutalization of "Los gorilas."

The satire rests on the symbolic reference to the growing role and frequency of military regimes in

Argentina with their concommitant progressive brutality and violence. Where verbal persuasion and deception ceased to have credibility, violence took over.

The interrogators seek the "identity" of the descamisado, Lucho, and the demonstration's organizers.

Bueno accuses the manikin of damaging and burning property, breaking into homes and violating women. "La familia" and the fifth song come to mind. With comic irony Bueno 304

demands the manikin speak and warns him that "la fuerza

bruta no conduce a nada. ..." (118) Of course, a mani­

kin (the descamisado) deprived by definition of voice

(vehicles of political expression) will not be able to

respond either to verbal or physical intimidation and force.

By this time the descamisado has been dragged and

thrown on the bed for the inevitable torture. Class dis­

tinctions and fragmentation, only alluded to so far in the

scene through Bueno's address of the manikin as "negro,"

are now physically symbolized and portrayed with the piece

by piece dismemberment of the puppet figure. Malo cuts

off each part and hands it to Bueno who speaks to it in

turn.

The head evokes a sermon on the ability to think,

learn and cooperate: "£No te das cuentas que te queremos participar de las cosas?" (119) The political, social and economic dismemberment of the descamisado precludes his participation. Bueno repeats the lines from "El orden" and

"Los gorilas": "Cada uno tiene su lugar, cada uno cumple su papel." (120) The head is tossed aside.

The arms should be used for sports and "useful" work and leave the job of advancing the public well-being to the authorities. Without government direction the worker would expend useless energy for perverse and carnal ends, pre­ cisely what Malo and Bueno are engaged in at the moment.

The legs have deviated from their normal course between 305

work and home. The stomach would be empty were it not for

the government. The imaginary testicles are exhorted to go

forth and multiply though nothing more on pain of being

pulled off once and for all.

By now Bueno soars into rhetorical frenzy and rips out

the heart to which he speaks of one community where each

stays in his assigned place executing the assigned func­

tion. The government watches over and understands the

incapable poor who should look to God and the next life if

they want freedom.

The nurse enters to clean up. In the background the drum faintly picks up volume until the final curtain; its beat is that of the heart held by Bueno. Bueno avows

that in this world chaos, perversion, immorality, subver­ sion, factionalism, insolence and violence will not be tolerated. There will be peace, law, charity, love, faith and dialogue because there is government. The play's maxi­ mum irony pounds in the final line: "iHay que hablar, hay que hablar!” (122) A blackout ends the play with the beat of the drum at a deafening and unbearable pitch, symboliz­ ing the suppressed voice of the masses bursting beyond their superimposed confines.

The final lines are a statement of the military gov­ ernment's conception of its role as guardian of both material and spiritual national order. They evoke the rhetoric of "Las perchas.” In 1964, Onganfa had outlined the functions appropriate to the Armed Forces in his

"Doctrina de West Point," which included among other points the preservation of Western Christian spiritual and moral values, the guarantee of public order and internal peace, and the economic and social development of the nation in 51 cooperation with civil authorities. These doctrines were effected during his Presidency from 1966 to 1970, but the increasingly repressive nature of his government and worsening economic conditions so combined to exacerbate tensions between the military and the people, that in

196 8 Ongania responded with his comunitarismo solidarista, which sought to establish public participation through syndicalism and unity, and through the use of dialogue be- 52 tween those governed and those who govern. The rightist nationalism characterizing his government included rejec­ tion of the parlimentary and party systems and acceptance of functional or corporatist structures under an authori­ tarian tutelage where the State was the central reality directing national life in the absence of the people's 53 ability for self-government.

The government as caretaker of the people's spiritual and moral welfare, as the sole organ of order and peace, and as a cooperative participant in government through dialogue with the nation's sectors are aspects of the

Ongania regime clearly alluded to and satirized in Bueno's

"conversation" with the dismembered descamisado, symbol of 307 the dehumanized and politically voiceless laboring masses.

The cooperative dialogue opening the way for Perdn's return, symbolized by the beating heart in Bueno's hand, is almost ferociously satirized in the final lines of the play: "no habra otra salida que el dialogo. I Hay que hablar, hay que hablar!" (122) The opposing sectors to the proletarian masses in the streets issue an ultimatum to the workers through the military, significantly, through its torturer symbol. The playwrights warn that the dialogue portends both violence and co-optation and suggest that the tactic of bringing back Perdn as a symbolic gesture to the masses will be unsuccessful as a measure to forestall the emergence of the proletariat as a revolutionary force.

Students of Perdn and contemporary Argentine politics discuss Argentine history in terms of "sectors" and "cor­ poratism" which characterize and emphasize the fragmenta­ tion of Argentine society. All cite the lack of a unifying force, since the charismatic Peronist period, whether a functioning horizontal party system or an authoritarian vertical order. Fragmentation, rooted in geographical isolation of provinces from the capital, in ethnic divers­ ity due to immigration, and in class conflict between the proletariat and the oligarchy, became the political tool of Perdn, whose manipulation and setting of one sector against another deepened and worsened the problem of national economic and political coordination and unification. 308

Succeeding regimes, both civilian and military, sought to

de-Peronize the nation through political integration pro­

grams, but uneven development at the cost of proletarian

gains won under Per6n served to perpetrate the opposite

result, especially as inflation and narrowly channeled government policies drew economically and politically weakened bourgeois professional and industrial sectors into cooperation with Peronism.

Lucho's imagined 19 70 return of Perdn in El avidn negro suggests that fragmentation still may be an histori­ cal constant for Argentina. The supposed return of Perdn reawakens old hatreds, class antagonisms and schisms and results in violence and continued separation. As already indicated, Perdn never appears in the drama except as the phantom "concretization" of the myth in the first scene.

Lucho and the General are physically isolated from the workers in Lucho's cell-like tenement room. The playwrights thus have structurally dramatized their essential separa­ tion from the workers and thematically reinforced the separation through the latters' banging protests on the walls. Lucho represents the romanticized myth and its be­ lievers. His drum symbolizes the Peronist manipulative techniques of the past. Its music is nothing more than political rhetoric belying the lack of ideological bond between leader and movement. It is not by accident that the drum plays the final role in the play in the hand of a 309 military representative where it beats in dialogue with the government. In the opening scene we have seen the opposi­ tional theme and structure between "el pueblo" and "los otros" and between the Peronists and Per6n which are dramatized throughout the rest of the play in scenes and the workers' songs respectively.

Peron's return is the ostensible motivation of El avi6n negro and, despite the preponderance of anti-Peronist sentiment in the play, the most compelling comment is made with regard to the proletariat and the present historical moment of 19 70. We can deduce this from the play's title, indicating current myths and expectations; from the con­ tinuous satire of the 1966 Argentine Revolution under

Ongania; and, more importantly, from the five workers' songs. Ricardo Halac has indicated that the playwrights focus on destroying contemporary myths. Such myths have to do with conceptions of coalition and unity within the proletariat and between the proletariat and the military and oligarchy. The major myth is, of course, that Per6n's return would guarantee the political voice and advancement of the people and that Per6n and the Peronists are a uni­ fied force with coincident goals and ideologies. The reality is that the Peronist movement neither represents proletarian interests nor offers a solution to class and sector conflict. 310

The prognosis of growing violence, expressed through

an increasing progression of verbal and physical aggression

from both nonproletarian and proletarian sectors alike, was, of course, accurate as evidenced in the militant armed wings of the Peronist movement, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolu-

cionaries (FAR) and the Montoneros, and in escalated strikes

and terrorist acts.

Constrained by the dictatorship and its censorship, the four dramatists were compelled to make these political

comments indirectly, which explains the carefully orches­ trated structural fragmentation of El avidn negro, the reliance on humor and satire, and the presence and serious tone of the workers' songs intercalated throughout the drama through which the political comment is most directly expressed. Through the songs the proletariat asserts its strong consciousness of identity and class, its readiness and desire to resort to violence in order to be heard and to realize revenge, and its lack of faith that Perdn's return will make a difference. The playwrights suggest that underlying divisions are so strong between classes and sectors that, despite surface cooperation (the husband in "La sirvienta," the union bureaucrat in "Companero," the three communists in "Comitd Central," the workers' spokesman in "Companero 2," the father in "La familia," and Bueno in "Las torturas"), real unification under Perdn is not possible and that it is a myth to suggest reality 311 will be otherwise. The play posits that the upper class

("La sirvienta" and "La familia") will always socially patronize the working classes, the upwardly mobile union bureaucrats will sell out to the capitalist value system

("Companero" and "Companero 2"), the bourgeois profes­ sionals and entrepreneurs will disassociate with the pro­ letariat ("El dentista" and "El inversor"), and the mili­ tary will manipulate the proletariat through rhetoric and brute force under the guise of its protection and shared values ("El orden" and "Las torturas'). The major tech­ niques employed to symbolize these class and sector con­ flicts are the fragmented structure of the play and the breakdowns of language communication.

The structure of the play juxtaposes non-Peronist sectors in the scenes with Peronists in the songs. The latter pass by outside the windows of the former, who are contained hermetically in small spaces. The marchers enter the stage only in the opening scene when Lucho con­ vokes them, in "Campanero 2" when the union group joins with the marchers and the murga, and in "La familia" when two of their members enter the upper-class living-room.

They are typically relegated to the structural margins of the play off-stage, which symbolizes their marginality within Argentine society. It is the workers' silenced voice which conveys their presence and lends irony to the final lines: "jHay que hablar, hay que hablar!" The 312 bombo and the heartbeat are additional acoustic symbols of that suppressed voice.

The division of the play into twelve fragmented scenes and the lack of plot and story resolution underscore and symbolize the essential separatism of Argentine society.

Internal unity is maintained within these scenes through the voiced presence of the marchers passing in the street and through the paralleling of scenes and themes. There are two scenes dealing with workers and their unions, two dealing with lack of political ideology, two presenting upper-class families, two treating interrogation, and two focusing on the professional and business bourgeoisie.

Thematic parallels include the maintenance of the worker in his place, co-optation of one interest group by another, social hyprocrisy, materialism, language breakdowns and rhetorical formulas, and violence.

One of the remarkable feats of El avidn negro is the weaving of many dramatic techniques into a whole cloth, despite possible difficulties inherent in a collective cre­ ation. The result is a play that at once entertains but that also teaches and provokes. The playwrights have in­ corporated both internal national dramatic traditions and external European influences. Structural borrowings come from the Theatre of the Absurd and the Brechtian epic. The grotesque elements combine both the national grotesco criollo/sainete tradition and Antonin Artaud's Theatre 313

of Cruelty.

As in Theatre of the Absurd, structurally there is no

traditional plot with a sequence of associative scenes in

chronological and cogent order, but there is thematic and

chronological unity around Perdn's return, an historical

event, as one might find in the Brechtian epic. El avidn negro manifests other common elements with the Theatre of

the Absurd: ambivalent action— at once realistic and

fantastic (the entire play is an "imagined" event), the failure of language to communicate, emphasized physical action (farce, beatings, violence, for example), and lack of characterization (typification and generalized iden- tity).x 54

Although far from the realistic Brechtian epic, El avidn negro does share with it heightened emphasis on individual scenic units and on the expressionistic use of songs and violence to convey a message. Its focus, like

Brecht's, is on external, social reality and the narrative, and it seeks to maintain a critical distance ultimately between audience and dramatic action, here through laughter and exaggeration.

As stated above, the grotesque in El avidn negro stems from Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty and from a strong dramatic tradition in Argentina, the grotesco criollo, which developed a complex and sophisticated tragicomic expression well adapted to the political vision of the 314

four dramatists. The grotesco criollo has been termed "la 55 forma 'problematizada' del sainete," and its major

Argentine exponents include, among others, Francisco

Defilippis Novoa, Armando Disc^pelo and Juan Carlos Ghiano.

This genre captures the conflict and crisis of the immi­

grant Argentine (the urban proletariat) caught between the

tension of his internal identity and the external socio­

economic order which denies him any effective participa­

tion. Such an order appears disparate and absurd in con­

trast with the actual conditions in which he lives. It pits the immigrant against the criollo (the workers and the anti-Peronists in El avi6n negro):

La falta de medios y la lucha por la subsistencia fisica empujan al personaje a una lucha moral; a tener que escoger entre perecer de miseria o alienarse al ceder al sistema. . . el sistema tiene tanto peso en cuanto a forma de explotacidn eco- ndmica como en cuanto a las imposiciones de conducta s o c i a l . 56

The playwrights of El avi6n negro have transformed the moral struggle into a political struggle.

Laughter and the comic function in the grotesco criollo as a means of escape through the degradation of the oppressing order and system (the satire and irony of 57 the play). The grotesque itself presupposes disintegra­ tion, loss of order, and alienation resulting from the known and the familiar within a forbidding and foreign 5 8 context which distorts them. We think at once of the dismemberment of the descamisado manikin, the emotional 315

collapse of the accused in "El Orden," and the dental

patient being drilled to death. Disintegration of Argen­

tine society is transmitted through the fragmented struc­

ture of the play; fear of the loss of order provokes the

violence of the play's content and message; and alienation

characterizes the dialectic process and confrontation of

the protagonists seen between the marchers and the anti-

Peronists. Coincident characteristics of the Argentine

sainete and grotesco criollo with El avidn negro include

the use of stereotypes, a simple plot, and comedic ex­

pression of language through accent, jargon and dialect

caricature.

Antonin Artaud defined his Theatre of Cruelty not as

one of physical beating and blood-letting but one of an

applied, conscious, rigorous and irreversible action born 59 out of necessity. The drilling to death of the dental

patient is in this sense not a cruel act, for it is

unconscious and not born of unavoidable necessity. The

beating of the manikin by Rosato falls between the con­

scious and unconscious act since he has been programmed to

violence and is in the control of his master, Viejo 1. The

dismemberment of the manikin by Malo and Bueno is a con­

scious act expressing a determination and single-minded purposiveness in response to a necessity: the retention of

order and the status quo. This is the ultimate act of

cruelty perpetrated by the Argentine military against the 316 proletariat. Both patient and puppet are, of course, from

the proletarian sector.

The shock effect arising from the absurd exaggerated

to the level of the grotesque is done to generate audience

reaction. The dentist's treatment of the patient and

Rosato's treatment of the manikin are both deviations from normal behavior, but their exaggeration, context and physi­ cal nature allow comic appeal. Whereas interrogating a manikin and addressing its dismembered parts is absurd or ridiculous and hence funny, as is the drilling to death of a patient, the additional input of psychological brutaliza­ tion and manipulation places such action apart from that of the dentist and Rosato. The use of Beethoven's sym­ phony, which takes the dentist outside of himself and releases his anger, and the bestial attack on the manikin by Rosato are actions not executed with full mental con­ trol by their perpetrators. Both Rosato and the dentist are in frenzied states, the latter spontaneously so and the former through a trained trigger mechanism response.

However, Bueno and Malo execute calculated and conscious mental and physical brutality.

Whereas laughter entertains the viewer, the grotesque provokes discomfort or distaste which must be confronted on an intellectual, critical ground. The audience is brought up short in its laughter and questions its motiva­ tion. This is the same "risa dolorosa" fundamental to the 317 grotesco criollo. It is to this discomfort that the play­ wrights have consciously led their audience through a pro­ gressive exaggeration leading to a climax of grotesque violence. Exposing the audience to repulsive, aggressive and grotesque acts is here a political act and comment and fulfills both Artaud's and Brecht's goal of theatre as a provocative experience designed for active audience response to the conditions of humanity.

Just as the manikin, the audience has been psychologi­ cally manipulated within the space of the few minutes at the play's end. In the final scene "Las torturas," the playwrights bring the audience back to a reactive distance from the associative distance of "La familia." The rapidity of this distancing, Brecht's "alienation," creates a violent emotional and mental shock within the audience, all this, bear in mind, accomplished within a comic expres­ sion of the serious and grotesque. However, despite all the marvelous comic treatment and expression in El avidn negro, the play's content is, nonetheless, deadly serious.

The initial humor of the play is conveyed on a direct level through visual and verbal effects. The change in its direction is gradual, progressing from realistic situation comedy to verbal and physical farce to black humor expressed through the absurd and the grotesque. The audience's interest is captured from the outset by the boxing gloves on Lucho's drumsticks and by the fantasy and expectation 318

conjured up in Lucho's mind. That what unfolds is fantasy and not reality is purposely accentuated through visual and verbal humor.

Visual humor arises from objects and from physical actions, both of which are exaggerated for comic effect, frequently to the level of farce. Humorous objects include the boxing gloves, the cemetery model, the sword and the serum bottle. Physical humor includes the union boss' eat­ ing habits, GonzSlez' near fall out of the window and his tango with Monica, the gorilas attempted embrace, the dental patient's gestures, and the brandishing of weapons by Viejo 1 and Viejo 2.

Language plays a primary and intensified comedic role throughout the drama: the husband's belief only in the printed word, the misinterpretation by the union bureaucrat of the description of the workers' presence outside, the incorrect grammar and anachronistic expressions of the

English tape, Gonzalez' verbal portrayal of an Americanized

Mexican, the verbal entrapment by the civil servant of the detainee, the garbled speech of the dental patient, the unheeded commands to Rosato as if he were an animal, the technocrat's discussion of production costs, the wife's uncomprehending ingenuousness in talking with the demon­ strators, the lack of words from the manikin, and Bueno's attempts at interrogation. 319

Language is parodied through accents, both those of the English tape and those of the three foreign-born Com­ munists, but it is primarily lampooned through rhetorical formulas associated with sector ideologies: the civil service interrogator; the attempted statement by the three communists; the co-opted union bureaucrat, and worker spokesman; the official sector responses of the bishop, general, businessman, bureaucrat and man-on-the-street; the speech of the homosexual son to the crowds; and Bueno's final monologue to the dismembered descamisado.

However, by the final three dramatic sequences the humor has become less verbal and more physical, and the growing seriousness of the dramatic comment has become apparent. The implicit physical violence of "La familia" within a plausibly realistic context, the promised violence in the fifth workers' song, and the realistic opening of

"Las torturas" have narrowed the distance between audience and play, maintained to this point by verbal and broad physical humor. The dramatists move back from the comic absurd in preparation for the serious absurd and grotesque, if we can make that distinction on the basis of the psycho­ logical manipulation present in the final actions. It would seem the final serious throbbing drumbeat at a deafening volume corroborates such a distinction. The descamisado, kept at a distance outside the window until

"La familia," comes on stage and is one step closer to the 320

audience in a physical sense. The psychological violence

of threat and innuendo in the family scene combines with

the threat of the fifth workers' song, and, despite the

final visual presentation of the descamisado as a dis­ membered puppet, his ultimate presence is his voice threat­

ening through the heartbeat the vitality of his promised violence. CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS

From the analysis of the four plays developed above certain common structures and themes which characterize

Spanish political theatre of the 1960s emerge. Because political theatre is essentially a theatre of idea or thesis and collective situation, as opposed to theatre of character and plot, the attraction and flexibility of the chorus for political playwrights is obvious. For identical reasons, the typification and infusion of symbolic value to protagonists, whether individual or collective, also be­ comes understandable. Additionally, overall dramatic structures which allow the inclusion of numerous and diverse protagonists and characters provide increased flexibility for the political playwright. The chorus, the collective protagonist, and open flexible dramatic struc­ tures are major features of the political theatre of the

1960s.

Each of the four analyzed plays deals with a collec­ tive protagonist, three plays involved primarily with the rural peasant masses and El avi6n negro with the urban proletariat. This focus on politically, economically and 321 socially marginal and excluded sectors is a main feature

of political theatre of the decade. Where individual

protagonists do appear, as in Los siete contra Tebas, Los

que van quedando en el camino, and tsilencio, polios

pelones.... each is either symbolic of the interests of

one of these sectors or of obstacles to the interests of

these sectors: Et6ocles represents the cause of the Cuban

masses, especially that of the rural sector; Mama Lorenza

represents the collective conscience of the Chilean peas­

ants; and Porfirio the dependent Mexican campesino.

Polinice symbolizes the bourgeois Cuban class allied with

and dependent on North American imperialism, and Leonela

symbolizes the Mexican political paternal government and

its bureaucracy. Where protagonists undergo change, and

in this sense are dramatically developed and deepened as

individuals, the change emphasizes and symbolizes the process of political change rather than emphasizing per­

sonality change. Leonela develops from a warm and maternal

figure to an aloof and bureaucratic figure not for reasons of penetrating the process of her individual psychological character but to demonstrate the corrupting forces of impersonal political power. Mama Lorenza changes from a passive peasant figure to an activist for the peasant cause by confronting her personally suppressed history and polit­ ical conscience. Aguirre develops this change for the purpose of directing and encouraging collective peasant 323

political consciousness and audience commitment. In El

avi6n negro, the protagonists of each scene symbolize urban

occupational sectors and their ideologies which are devel­

oped in response to an hypothetical historical event, the

return of Juan Per6n.

In each play one notes the use of a chorus which symbolizes a collectivity or interest group in its own right. In TSilencio, polios pelones..., the chorus is comprised of actors who sing and narrate commentaries which either describe, crystalize or analyze immediately preced­ ing actions. However, the chorus also represents the actors who open and close the play as participating collec­ tive protagonists portraying themselves as representatives of the arts in Mexico. The chorus in Los siete contra

Tebas narrates off-stage action, typical of the traditional

Greek dramatic function of the chorus, but also represents the citizenry of Thebes on a direct level and symbolizes the Cubans on a political allegorical level. They are a participating protagonist group in their own right on stage as part of the dramatic action. The chorus in Los que van quedando en el camino symbolizes the rural peasant sector and actively participates in the dramatic action at both the beginning and end of the epic drama as a protagonist group, although they do not comment on, interpret, or analyze the main dramatic action. Similarly, the chorus in El avi6n negro symbolizes the marching urban proletariat 324 participating in its own action who appear on stage as a group only twice but who are heard in three other instances off-stage through their songs of identity and political intent. Their voices and songs are the provoking catalyst of the on-stage dramatic action. In both Carballido's play and Aguirre's, the chorus opens and closes the action, functioning as a unifying structural element. In the

Arrufat and Argentine collective dramas, the chorus func­ tions also as a unifying structure but is present directly or indirectly at intervals throughout the entire drama.

These uses of the chorus to symbolize collective marginal sectors and to function as active protagonist groups both structurally and thematically are another major feature of political theatre of the 1960s and reflect the widespread use, interpretation and adaptation of the

Brechtian chorus in the political drama of Spanish America.

The vast gaps between rich and poor, between political and social elites and the marginal sectors are the subject matter of the four plays studied but also of much of the rest of the political theatre of the 1960s. The search for and use of dramatic structures to convey the fragmentation, marginal isolation, and lack of government avenues between the governed and those who govern have led to an overwhelm­ ing reliance on Brechtian epic theatre structures and techniques, with particular dependence on the latter's self-contained scenic dramatic units. These permit the 325

Spanish American playwright the flexibility to incorporate multiple protagonist groups (sectors) and situations which dramatically underscore separation and marginality of the

societal and political structures to which they refer. The

case of Arrufat's tragedy provides an exception to the

typical Brechtian adaptations due to its structural imita­

tion in the main of the Greek model.

Individual independent scenes in El avi6n negro are unified by the event that provokes them, the purported return of Perdn and the resulting massing of the proletar­ iat in the streets which is the chorus' structural function.

The unifying structure in Los que van quedando en el camino is essentially the dramatic figure of Mama Lorenza plus the themes of hunger, literacy and legality which she must remember and confront. The dual structures of Lorenza in the past and Mama Lorenza in the present are in turn unified by the temporal plane of memory. In Los siete contra Tebas, the theme of political justice and the choral structure of the collectivity unify the scenes. iSilencio, polios pelones... relies also on the choral structure for unity but also on the threading and interweaving of two dramatic planes, that of Porfirio and that of Leonela, not unlike the dual structure of Lorenza and Mama Lorenza employed by

Aguirre.

Three plays convey a process: the proletariat massing in El avi6n negro, the institutionalization of charity and 326 paternalism in ISilencio/ polios pelones.... and the remembering and consciousness-raising in Los que van quedando en el camino. The essentially descriptive charac­ ter of Los siete contra Tebas posits dramatic action not in a lineal progression or process (which has already occurred in the Cuban Revolution) but in the verbal dialectic or polemic/ which accounts for much of the static dramatic quality of that play in comparison to the fluidity of the other three works.

In the Introduction, a discussion of the reliance on history in political drama of the 1960s was presented. In all four exemplary plays of the main body, we find history playing a role, explicit in all but Carballido's work where allusion is made to the historical role of the Church and State in relation to the Mexican Revolution and to various stages of the Revolution. The concept of history as an evolving process is fundamental to each of the other plays where the historical past and present are dramatized, described or alluded to in an obvious fashion. Aguirre most directly conveys historical process both in her structural and thematic control, as discussed above. Her work is based on the historical and specific events of the 1934 Ranquil and Lonquimay massacres and shows condi­ tions in the historical present remain basically unchanged from those of the past but that peasant concepts of unity and political consciousness have evolved considerably. The 327 collective Argentine drama shows through satire and farce that the Peronist movement of the 1940s and 1950s has un­ dergone historical changes that no longer make it a viable alternative of political voice for the urban proletariat of

1970. The play refers to the historical figure of Per<“jn and his earlier movement, and though it deals in its dramatic present with an hypothetical event, future history was to prove the validity of that hypothesis. Arrufat relies on a Greek play based on the historical siege of Thebes to refer to Cuba's immediate historical past between 1959 and 19 61 and to the historical figure of Fidel Castro, the historical event of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the con­ tinuing historical conflict of the collectivity versus the individual within the Cuban Revolution, especially in its initial consolidation phase. In all three cases, the political situations presented have concrete or specific historical references. Even in Carballido's created dra­ matic situation concrete historical facts are presented through charts, maps, and a narrator directly addressing the audience prior to the portrayal of Porfirio’s story.

The framing of the play by the actors portraying them­ selves and presenting their current artistic problems and dilemmas is, of course, the inclusion of a concrete contemporary historical situation. In all four plays the problems of agrarian marginal sectors and the need for agrarian reforms are dealt with, centrally in the works of 328

Carballido and Aguirre and Arrufat and peripherally through

the marchers1 songs in El avi6n negro. The question of

land redistribution is specified and fundamental to the political criticisms made by the first three playwrights.

Music as a technical device to mark scene transitions or to provide an underlying unifying device is generally an adaptation of the Brechtian use of this age-old dramatic element. Lighting for scenic division and emphasis and direct audience address, either through narrators, choruses, or protagonists, are other techniques common to all but

Arrufat's Greek-based tragedy.

The question of political justice predominates thematically in all four plays and is specifically focused on class or sector marginality and polarization related to dependency on elite ruling oligarchies. Sector conflict either explicitly or implicitly involves the problem of collective justice versus individual justice, whether on the political, economic or social level. Carballido criticizes institutionalized government paternalism and charity as an illegitimate substitute for social justice.

The individual or elite sector singled out is the state bureaucracy; the collective sector is that of the peasant.

Carballido's didactic satire is primarily descriptive and makes no major attempt to posit solutions to overcome the isolation between the government and its constituency. 329

Arrufat also describes rather than prescribes in his

tragedy, which of all four works most directly deals with

collective justice (Castro's Revolution and the Cuban

masses) versus individual justice (the bourgeois and upper-

class exiles backed by foreign economic and political

interests). Two political systems are juxtaposed: that of

bourgeois capitalism with its individual profit motivation

and that of Marxist socialism with its collective ideology,

although the Marxist ideology was not an initial ideologi­

cal factor of importance at the outset of the Revolution.

Both Aguirre and the Argentine collective group of playwrights go beyond pure description in their treatment of injustice and the collectivity. Both wrote agitational plays designed to raise political consciousness and provoke audience commitment and action and to posit consequences or solutions. Through her adaption of the Brechtian epic theatre Aguirre pits the peasant sector collectively, symbolized by Mama Lorenza, against a government respon­ sive to marginality only through its rhetoric. Her message is that collective power through unity and politi­ cal consciousness will ultimately lead to violence in the attainment of the economic and political justice which legal reform channels have failed to provide.

El avi6n negro conveys its message through the massing proletariat who will unify through violence if need be to achieve political voice and justice since coalition and 330 collaboration with Peronism and/or the military does not provide a viable vehicle for these ends due to corruption, co-optation and repressive violence. In all works except

Carballido's, violence is posited as the likely or only means for marginal and/or lower-class sector justice. El avi6n negro presents collective violence as a threat, given the deep fragmentation and polarization of Argentine urban society justified by years of broken reform promises, hunger, and brutal repression. Los que van quedando en el camino presents collective violence as the necessary out­ come of an evolutionary historical process, justified also by broken reform promises, hunger, and brutal repression

(the lessons of Lonquimay and Ranquil) that have led to inevitable peasant unity and the only alternative left of revolution. Los siete contra Tebas presents collective violence as justified by the historical consequence of elitist materialism and political oligarchy. Violence here is a fait accompli, the Cuban Revolution. jSilencio, polios pelones... does not posit an outcome of collective vio­ lence, although Berta does obliquely refer to peasant strength through unity.

What does become clear from all four dramatic cases is the political conclusion that democratic reform has failed in Spanish America, leaving violence and revolution as the only possible outcomes. Aguirre and Arrufat refer to socialist revolution directly, the former to that 331 alternative as pending and the latter to it as a justifi­ able fait accompli despite the turmoil and bloodshed its process has unleashed. The Christian Democratic reforms of the

Frei government failed when they were partially tried. The

Mexican democratic mixed capitalist-socialist Revolution failed through corruption, patronage and paternalism, all of which belie internal colonialism and dependency struc­ tures preventing true economic, social and political jus­ tice. Neither the justicialismo of Peronism nor the comuni- tarismo solidarista of the Ongania military regime could unite deeply factionalized urban Argentine society since their power structures were based on sector manipulation and the pitting of one sector against another, physical force and social welfare reforms deferred for purposes of development of the industrial sector in alliance with foreign interests, holding the urban proletariat hostage to continued dependency. The dictatorship of Fulgencio

Batista and the profiteering of the upper-class and bourgeois economic elites supported by North American financial interests and imperialist designs led to the

Cuban Revolution and its eventual turn to a Marxist- socialist society.

At the heart of the failure of each of the forms of government criticized has been the maintenance of depend­ ency structures, whether domestic (Mexico and Chile) or foreign (Cuba and Argentina) that have encouraged continuous 332

marginality of great masses of national populations for the

benefit of a few. The rural peasant sectors of Chile,

Cuba, and Mexico and the urban proletariat of Argentina

have borne the brunt of unequal economic development pro­

grams. The question of hunger and the absence of viable

legal channels for conflict resolution are common themes,

then, of all four plays.

We can see from the above discussions and the main

body of the dissertation common characteristics of politi­

cal theatre in the 1950s: Brechtian structural techniques

such as lighting, music and direct audience address and a

series of self-contained and dramatically independent

scenes; the collective protagonist; the use of a chorus

to represent collective protagonists; the typification of

protagonists and their infusion with symbolic or allegori­

cal political meaning; reliance on national historical

events and figures for dramatic action and theme— often with documentary evidence; the dramatization of processes which imply a concept of history as an evolving process;

a consequently open dramatic structure that reinforces

thematic content; themes of class fragmentation and

polarization, government isolation from the masses, inter­

nal and external (antiimperialism vis a vis the United

States) political dependency, collective versus individual

or limited justice, poverty and hunger, and violence. The message implicitly or explicitly conveyed by the majority 333 of the political theatre of the 1960s is that reform and legal processes have failed and that the internal unifica­ tion of Spanish American marginal sectors is the only viable alternative left for change, change that will be realized only through immanent and/or necessary violence and revolution. NOTES

PROLOGUE

^-Eric Bentley, "The Pro and Con of Political Theatre," The Theatre of Commitment (New York: Atheneum, 196 7), p. 204.

^Ibid., p. 226. 3 Frank N. Dauster, "An Overview of Spanish American Theatre," Hispania, 50, No. 4 (December 1967), p. 999; George W. Woodyard, "Toward a Radical Theatre in Spanish America," in Contemporary Latin American Literature, ed. Harvy L. and Philip B. Taylor (Houston: University of Houston, 1973), p. 101. 4 Michael Kirby, "On Political Theatre," The Drama Review, No. 66 (June 1975), p. 129.

5Ibid., p. 131. g George Steiner, "Marxism and the Literary Critic," in Sociology of Literature and Drama, ed. Elizabeth and Tom Burns (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1973), p. 164. 7 Grinor Rojo, "Le thdcitre chilien contemporain," Europe, 54 annde, No. 570 (octobre 1976), pp. 253-266. g Juan Villegas, La interpretaci6n de la obra dramdtica (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1971). g Wolfgang Kayser, Interpretacidn y andlisis de la obra literaria (Madrid: Gredos, 1958); Felix Martlnez-Bonati, La estructura de la obra literaria (Santiago: Ediciones de la Universidad de Chile, 1960).

■^Villegas, p. 27.

^Roland Barthes, Critical Essays, trans. Richard Howard (Evanston: Nortnwestern university Press, 1972).

334 335 12 Lucien Goldmann, El teatro de J. Genet (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1958), p. 65, cited in Juan Villegas, La interpretacion de la obra dramatica (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1971), p. 21. 13 Harry Levin, "Literature as an Institution," in Sociology of Literature and Drama, ed. Elizabeth and Tom Burns (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1973), p. 67.

INTRODUCTION

^■Rodolfo Stavenhagen, "Seven Fallacies About Latin America," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), pp. 22-23.

^Ibid., pp. 28-29. 3 Helio Jaguanbe, Political Development: A General Theory and a Latin American Case Study (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 410. 4 Andre Gunder Frank, Lumpenbourgeoisie: Lumpendevel- opment: Dependence, Class and Politics in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1^72) , p. 116. 5 Jaguaribe, p. 409.

^Ibid., p. 498.

^Ibid., p. 461.

8Ibid., pp. 441-446.

8Ibid., p. 408.

10Ibid., p. 455.

■^J. P. Morray, "The United States and Latin America," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), pp. 108-112. 12 Kalman H. Silvert, The Conflict Society: Reaction and Revolution in Latin America (New York: Harper Colphon Books, 1968), p. 238. 336 13 Morray, p. 112. 14 Charles F. Denton and Preston Lee Lawrence, Latin American Politics; A Functional Approach (Scranton: Chandler PublTshing Co., 1972), p. 81.

15Ibid., p. 81.

38Jeannine Swift, Economic Development in Latin America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), p. 64. 17 Denton and Lawrence, p. 92. 18 Miguel Teubal, "The Failure of Latin America's Economic Integration," in Latin America: Reform or Revolu­ tion? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), pp. 126-128.

39Ibid., p. 131. 20 Denton and Lawrence, p. 93.

21Teubal, p. 14 2. 22 Michael Dodson, "Priests and Peronism: Radical Clergy and Argentine Politics," Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 3 (Fall 1974), p. 60.

23Ibid., p. 61. 24 Gary W. Wynia, The Politics of Latin American Devel­ opment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 207. 25T, . , Ibid., pp. 208-209. 26T. . Ibid., pp. 226-227.

27Ibid., p . 226.

28Ibid., pp. 217-218.

29Ibid., p. 124.

30Ibid., p. 125.

Ibid., pp. 231, 236. 32 Swift, Economic Development, p. 74. 33 Jaguaribe, Political Development, p 337

"^Ibid. , pp. 500-501

35Wynia, p. 184.

^Ibid. , p. 191.

37Ibid., pp. 192, 194.

38Ibid., pp. 193, 194.

38Ibid., p. 193. 40 Ibid., p. 194. 41 World Bank, World Development Report, 1979 (Washing­ ton: The World Bank^ 1979), p. 173, and Gary W. Wynia, Politics, p. 203. 42 Jaguaribe, Political Development, pp. 483-484.

4 3james Petras, "Revolution and Guerrilla Movements in Latin America: Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), p. 360. 44 Ibid., p. 364.

^3Ibid., p. 359.

^8Ibid., p. 361. 4 7t. . Wynia, Politics, p. 276. 4 8T, . , Ibid., pp. 275-276. 49 Ramon Layera, "The Latin Protest and Denunciation," in Hispanic Literatures: Litera­ ture and Politics, ed. J. Cruz Mendizabal. Published papers of the 2nd Annual Conference, October 8-9, 1976 (Indiana, Pennsylvania: Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1976), p. 280. 50 See Gerardo Luzuriaga and Richard Reeve, ed., Los cl£sicos del Teatro hispanoamericano (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1975), p. 425, and Frank N. Dauster, Historia del teatro hispanoamericano: siglos XIX y XX (Mdxico: Ediciones de Andrea, 19 73), p. 25. ^Ibid., p. 426. 52 338 Grinor Rojo, Los oricfines del teatro hispanoameri­ cano contempor£neo {Valparaiso: Editorial Universitaria de Valparaiso, 1972), pp. 49-54.

^3Ibid., pp. 62-65.

3^Ibid. , p. 67.

55Ibid., pp. 128-132.

38Ibid. , p. 140. 57 Luzunaga and Reeve, p. 426. 5 8 Frank N. Dauster, Historia del teatro hispanoameri- cano; siglos XIX y XX (Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1973), pT 26.

59Ibid., pp. 26-27.

88Pedro Bravo-Elizondo, El teatro hispanoamericano de critica social (Madrid: Coleccion Nova Scholar, 1975), p. 59. 61 Adolfo Cruz-Luls, "El movimiento teatral cubano en la Revolucidn," Casa de las Americas, XIX, No. 113 (marzo- abril, 1979), p. 48.

83Ibid. , pp. 42, 43.

63Ibid., p. 47. 64 Pablo Azecirate, "El nuevo teatro y la CCT," Separata de Estudios Marxistas (Cali: Centro Colombiano de Investi- gaciones Marxistas, n.d.), p. 15. 65T, . , Ibid., p. 17. 66t,. , Ibid., p. 18.

67Ibid., p . 23.

68,,Siete autores No. 6 (enero-marzo 1968), pp. 8-9.

89George W. Woodyard, "Toward a Radical Theatre in Spanish America," in Contemporary Latin American Litera­ ture, ed. Harvey L. Johnson and Philip B. Taylor (Houston: University of Houston, 1973), p. 95. 70 Barbara Heliodoro, "El momento actual en el teatro brasileno, Mundo Nuevo, No. 3 (diciembre 1968) , p. 83. 339 73Ibid., pp. 82-83. 72 Rine Leal, "Mesa Redonda: Hablan directores," Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio, 1968), p. 16. 73 "Charla sobre teatro," Casa de las Americas, II, No. 9 (Noviembre-diciembre 1961), p. 88. 74 John Dowling, "The Mexico City Theatre, 1969," Latin American Theatre Review, 3, No. 2 (Spring 1970, pp. 63-64.

75Ibid., p. 65. 76 For a detailed discussion of artistic freedom during the 1960s in Cuba, see Seymour Menton, "Part Two: Litera­ ture and Revolution," Prose Fiction of the Cuban Revolution (Texas: University of Texas, 1975), pp. 123-164.

77Ibid., p. 141. 7 8 Terry L. Palls, "The Theatre of the Absurd in Cuba after 1959," Latin American Literary Review, 4, No. 7 (Fall-Winter 1975) , pp. 68-69. 79 Ruben Monasterios, "Los dramaturgos venezolanos, hoy," Conjunto, 3, No. 9 (1969), p. 39. 80 "El movimiento teatral chileno," Conjunto, No. 8 (abril-junio 1968), p. 87. 81 John E. Lyon, "The Argentine Theatre and the Prob­ lem of National Identity: A Critical Survey," Latin Ameri­ can Theatre Review, 5, No. 2 (Spring 1972), p. 11. 82 "El movimiento teatral chileno," p. 79.

83Ibid., p. 90. 84 Jorge Diaz, "Refections on the Chilean Theatre," trans. Jean Pollitzer, The Drama Review, 14, No. 2 (Winter 1970), p. 85. 85 Margaret Sayers Peden, "Greek Myth in Contemporary Mexican Theater," Modern Drama, XII, No. 3 (December 1969), p. 225.

88Ibid., p. 230. 87Ibid., p. 225. 340 g Q Tamara Holzapfel, "A Mexican Medusa,” Modern Drama, XII, No. 3 (December 1969), p. 235. 90 Ibid., p. 236. 91 ~ Antonio Magana-Esquivel, ed., "Introduccidn," Teatro Mexicano del siglo XX (1957-1964} 9 8 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econdmica, 1970), p. 15. 92 See Donald Schmidt, "El teatro de Osvaldo Dragun," Latin American Theatre Review, 2, No. 2 (Spring 1969), pp. 3-20. 93 Woodyard, "Toward a Radical Theatre," p. 97. 94 Ibid., p. 96. 95 / G n n o r Rojo, "El teatro chileno contempor^neo," p. 16, personal copy of the author's manuscript later pub­ lished as "Le th^dtre chilien contemporain," Europe, 54 annSe, No. 570 (Octobre 1976), pp. 253-266. 96 Matias Montes-Huidobro, Persona, vida y mascara en el teatro cubano (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1973). 97 Romcin V. de la Campa, Jos£ Triana: La ritualizaci6n de la sociedad cubana. Manuscript. Forthcoming in 1980 from the University of Minnesota, Instituto de Estudio de Ideologias y Literaturas. 9 8 Carlos Miguel Su&rez Radillo, "Dos generaciones de la violencia en el teatro colombiano contempor^neo," Lo social en el teatro hispanoamericano (Caracas: Equinoccio, 1976), p. 112.

Q Q Ibid., p. 112.

100Ibid., p. 125.

101Ibid., pp. 134-138. 102 Monasteri o s , "Los dramaturgos," p. 45. 103 Dauster, Histona del teatro, p. 123. 104 Sergio Cornera, "El Grupo Teatro Escambray: Una experiencia de la Revoluci6n," in Popular Theater for Social Change in Latin America, edT Gerardo Luzuriaga (Los Angeles: UCLA Center Publications, 1978), p. 365.

105Ibid., p. 366. 341

106Rojo, "El teatro chileno," p. 22. 107_,., _. Ibid., p. 21. 10 8 Victor Fuentes, "La creacidn colectiva del Teatro Experimental de Cali," in Popular Theater for Social Change in Latin America, ed. Gerardo Luzuriaga (Los Angeles: UCLA Center Publications, 1978), pp. 340-343. 109 Carlos Miguel Sudrez Radillo, "El teatro de los Barrios en Venezuela," in Popular Theater for Social Change in Latin America, ed. Gerardo Luzuriaga (Los Angeles: UCLA Center Publications, 1978), p. 352.

110Ibid., p. 350.

MEXICO

■^John B. Nomland, Teatro mexicano contemporaneo (1900-1950) (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1967), p. 268.

Ibid. P- 169.

Ibid. P. 164.

Ibid. P- 169.

Ibid. P- 170.

Ibid. pp. 221

Ibid. P- 268.

8 -v Antonio Magana-Esquivel, "El teatro contemporaneo mexicano," Inter-American Review of Bibliography, XIII, No. 4 (October-December 1963), p. 404. 9 Juan Vicente Melo in Rine Leal, "Mesa Redonda: Hablan directores," Conjunto. No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), pp. 18-20.

^John Dowling, "The Mexico City Theatre, 1969," Latin American Theatre Review, 3, No. 2 (Spring 1970), p. 56.

"^Melo, p. 17. 342 12 Salvador Novo, "El teatro y la Revolucidn Mexicana," Letras vencidas (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1962), p. 146.

13Ibid., pp. 146, 151. 14 Emilio Carballido (1925-) has been one of Mexico's most prolific and well-known dramatists. He has also written short stories and novels. Frank Dauster cites his capacity for creating profoundly human characters, his masterful technical control, and his satiric humor. [Historia del teatro hispanoamericano; siglos XIX y XX (Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1973), p. 101.] Much of his drama exhibits a keen perception of provincial life and customs, for example, Rosalba y los Llaveros (1950), La danza que suena la tortuga (1955), Un pequeno dfa de ira (1962), and tsilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar sumaiz! (1963). Carballido has written many farses and satires, including some of the above-mentioned plays, as well as fantasies. He has been intrigued by the play be­ tween illusion and reality, especially during the 1950s, as seen in his La zona intermediaria (1950), La danza que suena la tortuga (1955), La hebra de oro (1956), El dia que soltaron los leones (1959), and Las estatuas de marfil (1960). Additionally, he has written two classical plays based on Greek myth: Teseo (1958) and Medusa (1966). Dur­ ing the 1960s, Carballido turned away from fantasy and realism to produce a number of works incorporating Brechtian techniques: Un pequeno dia de ira (1962), iSilencio, polios pelones. . . (1963), and Las noticias del dia (1968). Rosalba y los Llaveros, Un pequeno dia de ira and Yo tambidn hablo de la rosa (1958) are perhaps his best-known works. 15 Eugene R. Skinner, "The Theater of Emilio Car­ ballido: Spinning a Web," in Dramatists in Revolt, ed. Leon F. Lyday and George W. Woodyard (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), p. 28.

16Ibid., p. 28. 17 Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961), pp.“ 175-176. 18 Robert E. Scott, Mexican Government in Transition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), p. 100.

^Ibid. , pp. 100-101. 343 20 Martin C. Needier, "Problems in the Evaluation of the Mexican Political System," in Contemporary Mexico, ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer and Edna Monzdn de Wilkie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 339.

21Ibid., p. 340.

22Ibid., p. 341. 23 Pablo Gonzdlez Casanova, La democracia en Mexico (Mexico: Ediciones ERA, 1965), p~ 124. Gonzalez Casanova considers contemporary Mexico a semicapitalist state due to its lack of heavy industry and economic, political, and cultural independence. See also Pablo Gonzales Casanova, "The Dynamics of an Agrarian and 'Semicapitalist1 Revolu­ tion," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), pp. 467-485. 24 Gonzalez Casanova, La democracia, p. 124.

25Ibid., p. 145. 2 6 Roger D. Hansen, "PRI Politics in the 1970s: Crisis or Continuity?" in Contemporary Mexico, ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer and Edna Monzdn de Wilkie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 294- 295. 2 7 Gonzalez Casanova, La democracia, p. 224. 2 8 John F. H. and Susan Kaufman Purcell, "Machine Politics and Socio-Economic Change in Mexico," in Con­ temporary Mexico, ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer and Edna Monz6n de Wilkie (Berkeley: University of Cali­ fornia Press, 1976), p. 354. 29 Gonzalez Casanova, La democracia, p. 18. 30 Roger D. Hansen, La politica del desarrolla mexi­ cano (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1976), p. 140.

3^Ibid. , p. 144.

32Ibid., p. 143. 33 Jose Gabriel Guerra Utrilla, Los partidos politicos nacionales (Mexico: Editorial Amdrica^ 1970), pp. 171-174. 344

34Ibid., p. 204.

33Dan Hofstadter, Mexico; 1946-1973 (New York: Facts on File, 1974), p. 87.

36Ibid., pp. 71, 95-96.

37Ibid., p. 96.

O O Ibid., pp. 92-94. 39 Emilio Carballido, jSilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maizl in Teatro Mexicano, ed. Antonio Magafta-Esquivel (Mexico; Aguilar, 1965), p. 10 8. The play will be abbreviated hereafter in the text to 1Silencio polios pelones. . . and quotations will be cited within the text in the form (00). 40 Gonzalez Casanova, La democracia, pp. 71-72, 74.

41Ibid., p. 93. 42 Hansen, La politica, pp. 101, 105.

43Ibid., p. 106.

44Ibid., p. 106.

45Ibid., pp. 107, 108.

46Ibid., p. 108.

47Ibid., p. 90. 4 8 Ibid., p. 90. 49 Gonzalez Casanova, La democracia, p. 99. 50 Ibid., p. 97.

51Ibid., pp. 214-215.

52Ibid., p. 77. 53 Gabriel A. Almond and Sydney Verba. The Civic Cul­ ture; Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965), p. 17. in"’"this orientation, the citizens' relationship to the government "is toward the system on the government level and toward the output, administrative, or 'downward flow' side of the 345

political system; it is essentially a passive relation­ ship," p. 17.

■^Hansen, La polltica, pp. 238-239.

"^Ibid., p. 240. 5 6 Hansen, La polltica, p. 242. See Gabriel A. Almond and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture for detailed studies and charts. 57 Purcell and Purcell, "Machine Politics," p. 357. 5 8 Gonzdlez Casanova, La democracia, pp. 108-110. 59 Guerra Utrilla, Los partidos, pp. 206-207. 6 0 Alicia Olivera de Bonfil, "La iglesia en Mexico: 1926-1970," in Contemporary Mexico, ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer and Edna Monzdn de Wilkie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 301, 302.

61Ibid., p. 306.

62Ibid., pp. 310-312.

88Ibid. , p. 313. 64 Purcell and Purcell, "Machine Politics," p. 361.

65Ibid., p. 358.

^George M. Foster cited in Purcell and Purcell, "Machine Politics," p. 359. 6 7 Frank Brandenburg, The Making of Modern Mexico (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 162, cited in Roger D. Hansen, La polftica, p. 166.

68Ibid., pp. 161-162.

^^Hansen, La politica, pp. 232-233. 70 Joseph F. Vdlez, "Una entrevista con Emilio Carballido," Latin American Theatre Review, 4, No. 2 (Fall 1973), pp. 19, 20. 71 Skinner, "The Theater of Emilio Carballido," p. 31. 72Ibid., p. 31. 346

73Ibid., p. 31. 74 See footnote #53. 75 Paz, The Labyrinth/ p. 85. 76 Gonzalez Casanova, La democracia, p. 108. 77 Skinner, p. 31.

78Ibid., p. 31.

CUBA

3Julio E. Miranda, Nueva literature cubana (Madrid: Taurus, 1971), p. 108. 2 Antdn Arrufat's plays include El caso se investiga (1957), El vivo al polio (1961), Los dlas llenos (1$62), La repeticidn (1963), El ultimo tren (1963), ToHos los domingos (1966) , and Los siete contra Tebas (1968) . Born m 1935, Ant6n Arrufat spent several years in the United States and returned to Cuba in 1959. In addition to drama, he has written poetry and short stories. Since his dis­ missal as director of Casa de las Americas, in 1961, he continued to write plays until 1968, and as a theatre critic published articles occasionally in Cuba. However, after official rebukes in 1968, his name rarely appeared in Cuban journals and his activities during the 1970s have gone largely unreported. 3 Luis E. Aguilar, Cuba 1933: Prologue to Revolution (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1972), pT 29. 4 Robert Scheer and Maurice Zeitlin, Cuba: An American Tragedy (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1964), p. 60. 5 Samuel Farber, Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933- 1960 (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1976), p. 14. See chapters 1 and 8.

8Scheer and Zeitlin, pp. 67-74. 7 Hugh Thomas, Cuba: La lucha por la libertad (Barcelona: Ediciones Grijalba, 1973), Vol. Ill, p. 1587. 8Ibid., p. 1766. 347 8Ibid., p. 1610.

10Ibid., p. 1610.

^Sheer and Zeitlin, p. 156. 12 Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Political Sociology of Cuban Communism," in Revolutionary Change in Latin America: Cuba, ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), p. 140. 13 See Roman V. de la Campa, Josd Triana: La ritualiza- ci6n de la sociedad cubana, to be published in 1980 at the University of Minnesota, for a fascinating psychological and sociological interpretation of the play with its histor­ ical and political implications. 14 Miranda, p. 108. 15 Rine Leal, En pnmera persona (1954-1966) (La Habana: Instituto del Libro, 1967), pp. 105, 106.

"El teatro actual," Casa de las Americas, IV, Nos. 22-23 (enero-abril 1964), pi 105.

17Ibid., p. 106.

18Ibid., p. 106, 19 Terry Palls, "The Theater of the Absurd in Cuba after 1959," Latin American Literary Review, 4, No. 7 (Fall- Winter 1975) , p. 5"8l 20 de la Campa, pp. 33, 265. 21 Karl A. Tunberg, "The New Cuban Theatre," The Drama Review, 14, No. 2 (Winter 1970), p. 46.

22Ibid., p. 47. 23 Adolfo Cruz-Luls, "El movimiento teatral cubano en la Revolucidn," Casa de las Americas, XIX, No. 113 (marzo- abril, 1979), p. 48.

24Ibid., p. 47.

2^Ibid., p. 44. 26 Miranda, Nueva literatura cubana, p. 114. 34 8 27 The other members whose majority vote granted Arrufat the prize were Adolfo Gutkin, Ricardo Salvat, and Jos£ Triana. The "Declaraci6n" appears in Antdn Arrufat, Los sieta contra Tebas (La Habana: UNEAC, 1968), pp. 7-16. 2 8 Matlas Montes-Huidobro, Persona, vida y mascara en el teatro cubano (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1973), p. 408. 29 For a synopsis of the Revolution's official stance, see Lourdes Casal, "Literature and Society," in Revolution­ ary Change in Latin America: Cuba, ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), pp. 447- 46 7, and Lourdes Casal, El caso Padilla: Literatura y revolucidn en Cuba (New York: Ediciones Heva Atldntida, 1972). The latter work contains all the relevant documents and details of the Padilla furor, including Leopoldo Avila's article reprinted in full from Verde Olivo condemning Arrufat and Los siete contra Tebas. A more detailed ver­ sion of the Revolution's positionregarding writers can be found in Seymour Menton, "Part Two: Literature and Revolu­ tion," Prose Fiction of the Cuban Revolution (Texas: Uni- versity of Texas Press, 1975), pp. 123-164. 30 Antdn Arrufat, "Funcion de la critica literaria," Casa de las Americas, III, Nos. 17-18 (marzo-junio 1963), pp. 78-80. 31 James I. Wimsatt, Allegory and Mirror: Tradition and Structure in Middle English Literature (New York: Pegasus, 1970), p. 42. 32 See Anthony Hecht and Helen H. Bacon, "Introduc­ tion," Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes (London: Oxford University Press, 1974) for a full description of the myth behind the play. I am indebted to Hecht and Bacon for their translation and explication of the Greek version. 33 Antdn Arrufat, Los siete contra Tebas (La Habana: UNEAC, 1968), p. 28. Hereafter, all quotations will be cited within the text in the form (00). 34 Hecht and Bacon, pp. 14-15.

33Farber, Revolution, pp. 190-193, 197.

36Ibid., pp. 204, 205. 37 Thomas, Cuba, pp. 1732-1733.

O O Ibid., p. 1597. 349 39Ibid./ p. 1709.

40Ibid., p. 1378.

41Ibid., p. 1688. 4 2 Scheer and Zeitlin, Cuba, pp. 99-100. 43 Rolland G. Paulston, "Education," in Revolutionary Change in Latin America; Cuba, ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), p. 386. 44 See Leopoldo Avila, "Antdn se va a la guerra," Verde Olivo, IX, Mo. 46 (17 de noviembre 1968), pp. 16-18, in Lourdes Casal, El caso Padilla (New York: Ediciones Nueva Atlantida, 1971), P P . 30-33. 45 Hecht and Bacon, p. 11. 46 Scheer and Zeitlin, p. 60.

47Ibid., pp. 196-197. 4 8 Thomas, p. 159 3.

49Ibid., p. 1594. 50 Scheer and Zeitlin, p. 111. 51 Andres Suarez, Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 195 9- 1966 (Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 51. 52 Thomas, p. 1603.

53Ibid., p. 1597. 54 Farber, Revolution, p. 197.

55Ibid., p. 212. 56 Montes-Huidobro, Persona, p. 4 07.

^"El teatro actual," p. 106. C O 3 Ibid., p. 106. 350

CHILE

^Isidora Aguirre was born into a well-to-do family but early became interested in the economically disadvantaged, becoming a social worker and later a dramatist committed to political theatre, a commitment fully developed after traveling to Cuba in 1964 where she became a supporter of socialism. After working with Manuel Rojas in writing the joint drama Poblacidn Esperan2a (1959), Isidora Aguirre wrote her highly successful and well-known work Los papeleros (1963) about the mendicant classes. It was in the writing of this play that she became an advocate of Brechtian theatre. Her studies of Chilean society, her in­ tense political commitment through drama, and her control of Brechtian techniques led to the production of Los que van quedando en el camino in 1969. She continued writing theatre destined for the masses dealing with the history of Chile. The overthrow of the Allende government in 1973 brought an end to her direct participation in the expansion of the dramatic arts for the Chilean people. She lived in exile in Mexico but has recently returned to Chile. 2 "Rocoger la hazana de los muertos y entregarla a los vivos," Conjunto, No. 8 (abril-junio 1969), p. 53.

3Ibid., p. 51.

^Ibid., pp. 50, 52.

5Ibid., p. 57. g Almino Affonso et al., Movimiento compesino chileno (Santiago: Instituto de Capacitacidn e Investigacidn en Reforma Agraria, 1970), I., pp. 25-30. 7 "Strikers Entrenched in Chilean Revolt: 12 Dead as Cold Halts Carabineer Attack," New York Times, 2 July 19 34, p. 6, col. 3. g Affonso, p. 30. 9 "Rebels Devastate Farm Area," New York Times, 4 July 19 34, p. 16, col. 8.

^Brian Loveman, "The Transformation of the Chilean Countryside," Chile: Politics and Society, ed. Arturo and J. Samuel Valenzuela (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Trans­ action Books, 1976), p. 239. X1Ibid., p. 244. 351 12 James Petras, Politics and Social Forces in Chilean Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 196$), pp. 120, 121. 13 Maurice Zeitlin, "The Social Determinants of Politi­ cal Democracy in Chile," Latin America: Reform or Revolu­ tion? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), p. 220. 14 Edward Boorstein, Allende's Chile (New York: Inter­ nation Publishers, 1977) , pp. .41-43. 15 George McCutcheon McBride, Chile: Land and Society (New York: American Geographical Society, 1936), p. 212, cited in Norma Stoltz Chinchilla and Marvin Sternberg, "Reform and Class Struggle in the Countryside," Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 2 (Summer 1974), pp. 114-115. 16 Norma Stoltz Chinchilla and Marvin Sternberg, "Reform and Class Struggle in the Countryside," Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 2 (Summer 1974), p~ 115. 17 Petras, Politics and Social Forces, p. 224. l fi Ibid., p. 202. 19 Chinchilla and Sternberg, pp. 10 8-109. 20 Peter Dorner, ed., Land Reform in Latin America (Madison: Land Economics, 1971), pp. 125-128. 21 Brian Loveman, Struggle in the Countryside: Politics and Rural Labor in Chile 1919-1973 (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1^76), p. 271. 22 Grlnor Rojo, "El teatro chileno contempordneo (Notas para un ensayo de recapitulacion)," pp. 4-5, personal copy of author's manuscript later published as "Le thdatre chilien contemporain," Europe, 54 annee. No. 570 (Octobre 1976), pp. 253-266. 23 Domingo Piga, Dos generaciones del teatro chileno (Santiago: Escuela de Teatro de la Universidad de Chile, 1963), cited in Carlos Miguel Sudrez Radillo, "El teatro chileno actual y las universidades como sus principales fuerzas propulsoras," Inter-American Review of Bibliography, XXII, No. 1 (January-March 1973), p. 23. 352 24 Frank N. Dauster, Histona del teatro hispanoameri- cano: siglos XIX y XX (Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1973), p._ Tl-4V ----

25 Rine Leal, "Mesa Redonda: Hablan directores," Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), p. 9. 26 Rojo, p. 7.

27Ibid., p. 8.

28Ibid., pp. 14, 15. 29 See Domingo Piga, "Declaracidn de principio del Departamento de Teatro de la Universidad de Chile," Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), pp. 99-102.

30Ibid., p. 100. 31 "Recoger la hazana. . . pp. 54-56. 32 Jaime Celed6n, "El ICTUS ha dicho: iBasta!" Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), p. 83.

33Jaime Vadell, "Cabildo," Conjunto, No. 7 (abril- junio 1968), p. 93. 34_ . Rojo, p. 17. 35 Isidora Aguirre, Los que van quedando an el camino (Santiago: Mueller, 19707*1 Hereafter, all quotations will be cited within the text in the form (00). 36 Chinchilla and Sternberg, pp. 116-121.

37Ibid., pp. 117, 123. 38 Paul E. Sigmund, "Three Views of Allende's Chile," Chile: Politics and Society, ed. Arturo and J. Samuel Valenzuela (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1976), p. 119. 353

ARGENTINA

■^Domingo F. Casadevall, La evolucidn de la Argentina vista por el teatro nacional (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Culturales Argentinas, 1^65), p. 1965.

^Ibid., p. 135. 3 Eva Claudia Kaiser-Renoir, El grotesco criollo; estilo teatral de una £poca (Habana: Casa de las Americas, 1977), p. 54. 4 Casadevall, p. 144.

'’Fr a n k N. Dauster, Historia del teatro hispanoameri- cano: siglos XIX y XX (Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 197 3), pp. 28-29.

Ibid., p. 29.

Ibid., p. 30.

Ibid., p. 30. 9 Raul Hector Castagnino, Literatura dram£tica argen- tina, 1717-1967 (Buenos Aires, Editorial Pleamar, 1968), pp. 119-120.

"^Castagnino, pp. 157, 160-161.

■^John E. Lyon, "The Argentine Theatre and the Problem of National Identity: A Critical Survey," Latin American Theatre Review, 5, No. 2 (Spring 1972) , pp~ 9-10. 12 See Pedro Bravo-Elizondo, El teatro hispanoamericano de critica social (Madrid: Coleccidn Nova Scholar, 1975), pp. 119-129. 13 See Donald L. Schmidt, "El teatro de Osvaldo Dragtin," Latin American Theatre Review, 2, No. 2 (Spring 1969), pp. 3-20. 14 "Charla sobre teatro," Casa de las Americas, II, No. 9 (noviembre-diciembre 1961) , p7 SIT. 15 "Siete autores en busca de un teatro," Conjunto, ano 3, No. 6 (enero-marzo 1968), pp. 7-8. Under the repres- sive military regime of Oscar Videla, 1976 to present, 354

Rodolfo Walsh has been missing and is assumed to be one of the numerous political victims to have been assassinated.

^Lilian Tschudi, Teatro argentino actual (1960-1972) (Buenos Aires: Fernando Garcfa Cambeiro, 1974), p. 107. 17 Tschudi. See especially her concluding remarks, pp. 131-136. 18 The four playwrights of El avidn negro, who with Ricardo Halac formed the Grupo de Autores, belong to the same historical generation of Argentine dramatists, each being born in the 1930s and, with the exception of Carlos Somigliana, each tending to write plays concerning bour­ geois sectors. El avi6n negro continues this direction but marks the first effort of all four to include the pro­ letariat within a political context. All four had written social theatre prior to 1970, with Somigliana being mainly interested in lower-class protagonists. Roberto Cossa (1934) had become interested in the post-Per6n period with his La pata de la sota (1967) after writing plays with a sociopsychological focus: Huestro fin de semana (1964), Los dias de Julian Bisbal (1966), and La nata contra el libro. German Rozenmacher (19 36-19 70) , in addition to his adaptation of Lazarillo de Tormes (1970), had written Rdquiem para un viernes a la noche (1964) dealing with immigrant and religious identity. Somigliana (1932) wrote Amarillo (1965) centered on agrarian reform and the Gracos and De~Ia navegacion (1969) about galley slaves. He also wrote a comedy, La b'olsa de agua caliente (1966) and Amor de ciudad grande (1965), focusing on lower-class types. Somigliana used epidsodic structures in the first two men­ tioned plays. Ricardo Talesnik (1935) enjoyed the greatest reknown internationally for his highly successful La fiaca (1967), a farse dealing with individual struggle against the system and hunger which evolved into a grotesque tragedy. He also wrote a bourgeois tragedy in 1970, Cien veces no debo. The themes of lower-class suffering, immi­ grant identity and post-Peronist society appear in El avidn negro, as do the dramatic techniques of the theatre of the grotesque and the episodic structure of Brechtian theatre. 19 Ricardo Halac, "La realidad argentina: 'El avidn negro' y El Grupo de Autores," in El avi6n negro, Roberto Cossa, German Rosenmacher, Carlos Somigliana, and Ricardo Talesnik (Buenos Aires: Talia, 1970), p. 12. 20 Ricardo Halac, who joined the group of four shortly after the creation of El avi6n negro that later formed the Grupo de Autores committed to future joint dramatic produc­ tions, commented in the preface to the Argentine 1970 355 publication, "Hoy, son muy pocos los peronistas que creen que Peron va a volver de su exilio de Madrid," see foot­ note No. 19 above, p. 10. 21 See Robert J. Alexander, The Pergn Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), pp. 20-32, for an elabor­ ation of Peron's early labor organization. 22 "Aclaraciones necesarias," Tres obras de teatro (Habana: Casa de las Americas, 1970), p. ll. 23 Raul A. Mende cited in La nueva Argentina, 1946- 1955, Pedro Santos Martinez (Buenos Aires: Ediciones La Bastilla, 1976), Vol. 1, p. 48. See pages 46-52 for a fuller discussion of the doctrine. 24 Jean Kirkpatrick, Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society: A Study of Peronist Argentina (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1971), p. 41, and Kalman H. Silvert, The Conflict Society (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1968), pp. 5T- 95”!

25Ibid., pp. 34-36. 26 Alexander, pp. 115-124.

2^Ibid., p. 131. 2 8 Marvin Goldwert, Democracy, Militarism and National­ ism in Argentina, 1930-1956 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), pp. 94-104. 29 Alberto Ciria, "Peronism Yesterday and Today," Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 3 (Fall 1974), p. 24. 30 . . Jean Kirkpatrick, pp. 4 0-41. Alberto Ciria terms this process "distributive authoritarianism," that is, internal division, external balance with other sectors, and the granting of benefits through the personal inter­ vention of the arbiter, Perdn. See Alberto Ciria, p. 24.

^ G o l d w e r t , p. 14 2.

22Ibid., pp. 143-144. 33 See Michael Dodson, "Priests and Peronism: Radical Clergy and Argentine Perspectives," Latin American Per­ spectives, I, No. 3 (Fall 1974), pp. 58-72.

^Goldwert, pp. 149-150. 356 35 Juan C. Portantiero, "Dominant Classes and Political Crisis in Argentina Today," Latin American Perspectives, I, No. 3 (Fall 1974), p. 108.

■^Ibid., p. 109.

"^Ibid., p. 111. 38 Ciria, p. 27. 39 "Aclaraciones necesanes," p. 11. 40 These groups included Fuerzas Armadas Revolucion- arias, the Montoneros, the Ej^rcito Revolucionario de Pueblo, and the Tercermundistas. 41 Roberto Cossa, et al., El avi6n negro, in Tres obras de teatro (Habana: Casa de las Americas, 1970) , p~ 16. Hereafter all quotations will be cited from this edition within the text in the form (00). 42 the term "negro," already used by Lucho to charac­ terize his followers, was used to refer to the immigrants who had populated the Argentine interior during the turn of the century and whose families then returned as unskilled laborers to Buenos Aires and other urban centers in the 1930s and 1940s. They exhibit racial and ethnic mixes with the Indians and the creole elements. These internal mi­ grants were called cabecitas negras or negros, a derogatory term when used by the bourgeois and upper classes. See Marvin Goldwert, p. 98. 43 Portantiero, p. 112. 44 Martin Esslm, "Violence m Modern Drama," Reflec­ tions: Essays on Modern Theatre (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971), p. 171. 45 Kalman H. Silvert, The Conflict Society: Reaction and Revolution in Latin America (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1966), p. 162.

^Goldwert, p. 189. 4 7 See Jean Kirkpatrick for a detailed breakdown of the Peronist movement's composition and definition. 48 Portantiero, p. 111. 49 Julio Godio, La caida de Per6n: de junio a septiembre de 1955 (Buenos Aires: Granica Editor, 1973), p. 156. 50 Santos Martinez, II, pp. 24 3-264. 51 Carlos S. Fayt, El politico armado: din&nica del proceso politico argentino" (1960/1971) (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Pannedille, 1971), p . 26.

^^Ibid., p. 159.

^Ibid., pp. 55-61. 54 Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1961). 55 Kaiser-Renoir, El grotesco criollo, p. 45.

^Ibid., p. 60.

57Ibid., p. 186. C p Ibid., pp. 189, 190. 59 Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double (New York: Grove Press, 1958TT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Symons, James M. Meyerhold's Theatre of the Grotesque. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1971.

Vcizquez, Sanchez. Est^tica y Marxismo. Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1970.

Villegas, Juan. La interpretation de la obra dram^tica. Santiago: Universitaria, 1971.

Willett, John. Brecht on the Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic^ New York: Hill & Wang, 1964. 360 Wimsatt, James I. Allegory and Mirror: Tradition and Structure in Middle English Literature. New York: Pegasus, 1970.

Latin American Theatre Bibliography

Dauster, Frank N. "Drama." Handbook of Latin American Studies. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Vol. 23 (1961) pp. 349--358. Vol. 26 (1964) pp. 181--188. Vol. 28 (1966) pp. 289--302. Vol. 30 (1968) pp. 304--320. Vol. 32 (1970) pp. 420--437. Vol. 34 (1972) pp. 521--535. vol. 36 (1974) pp. 436--535.

______. "Recent Research in Spanish American Theatre." Latin American Research Review, 1-2 (Spring 1966) .

Foster, Virginia Ramos. "Contemporary Argentine Dramatists: A Bibliography." Theatre Documentation, 4:1 (1971- 1972), pp. 13-20.

Grismer, Raymond L. Bibliography of the Drama of Spain and Spanish America. 2 vols. Minneapolis: Burgess Beckwith, Inc., 1968-1969.

Hebblethwaite, Frank P. A Bibliographical Guide to Spanish American Theatre. Washington: Pan American Union, 1969.

Lamb, Ruth S. Bibliografla del teatro mexicano del siglo XX. Mexico: Stadium, 1962.

Lyday, Leon F., and George W. Woodyard. A Bibliography of Latin American Theatre Criticism, 1940-1974. Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, 1976.

______. "Studies on the Latin American Theatre 1960- 1969." Theatre Documentation, II (1969-1970), pp. 49-84.

Ordaz, Lulz, and Erminio de Neglia. Repertorio selecto del teatro hispanoamericano. Caracas: Monte Avila, 1975.

Orjuela, Hector H. Bibliografla del teatro colombiano. BogotS: Instituto Cara y Cuervo, 1974. 361

Skinner, Eugene R. "Research Guide to Post-Revolutionary Cuban Drama." Latin American Theatre Review, 7, No. 2 (Spring 1974), 19-61.

Latin American Theatre

Aguirre, Isidora. Los que van quedando en el camino. Santiago: Imprenta Mueller, 1970.

Arrufat, Ant6n. "Function de la critica literaria." Casa de las Americas, III, Nos. 17-18 (marzo-junio 1963), pp. 78-80.

______. Los siete contra Tebas. La Habana: UNEAC, 196 8.

Avila, Leopoldo. "Ant6n se va a la guerra." Verde Olivo, IX, No. 46 (17 de noviembre 1968), pp. 16-18. In Lourdes Casal. El caso Padilla. New York: Ediciones Nueva Atlfintida, 1971, pp. 30-33.

Azcirate, Pable. "El nuevo teatro y la CCT." Separata de Estudios Marxistas. Cali: Centro Colombiano de In- vestigaciones Marxistas, n.d.

Azar, Hector. "dQu6 pasa con el teatro en Mdxico?" Conjunto, No. 5 (octubre-diciembre 1967), pp. 94-100.

Bravo-Elizondo, Pedro. "Ranquil y 'Los que van quedando en el camino.1" Texto Critico. Centro de Investiga- ciones Linguxstico-Literarias de la Universidad Veracruzana, Ano IV, No. 10 (mayo-agosto 1978), pp. 76-85.

______. El teatro hispanoamericano de critica social. Madrid: Coleccifin Nova Scholar, 1975. de la Campa, RomSn. Jos6 Triana: La ritualizacidn de la sociedad cubana. Manuscript. Forthcoming in 1980 from the University of Minnesota.

Campanella, Hebe. "El hoy y el aqui en el teatro argentino de los Gltimos veinte anos." Cuadernos Hispanoameri- canos, No. 234 (junio 1969), pp. 673-693.

Carballido, Emilio. jSilencio, polios pelones, ya les van a echar su maiz! Teatro Mexicano^ Ed. Antonio Magafia Esquivel. Mexico: Aguilar, 1965. 362 Casadevall, Domingo F. La evoluci6n de la Argentina vista por el teatro nacional. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Culturales Argentinas, 1965.

Castagnino, Raul Hector. Literatura dramatics argentina, 1717-1967. Buenos Aires: Editorial Pleamar, 1968.

______. Semi6tica, ideologia y teatro hispanoamericano contemporaneo^ Buenos Aires: Editorial Nova, 1974 .

Caledon, Jaime. "El ICTUS ha dicho: iBasta!" Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), pp. 82-83.

"Charla sobre teatro." Casa de las Americas, II, No. 9 (noviembre-diciembre 1961), pp. 88-101.

"Cinco t6picos con Nicolas Dorr." Conjunto, No. 16 (abril- junio 1973), pp. 96-98.

Corriera, Sergio. "El Grupo Teatro Escambray: Una ex- periencia de la Revoluci6n." Popular Theater for Social Change. Ed. Gerardo Luzuriaga. Los Angeles: UCLA Center Publications, 1978, pp. 363-369.

Cossa, Roberto, et al. El avi6n negro. In Tres obras de teatro. La Habana: Casa de las Am£ricas^ 1970.

Cruz-Luis, Adolfo. "El movimiento teatral cubano en la revolucidn." Casa de las Americas, XIX, No. 113 (marzo-abril, 1979) , pp. 40-50.

Dauster, Frank N. "An Overview of Spanish American Theatre." Hispania, 50, No. 4 (December 1967), pp. 996-1000.

______. "Cuban Drama Today." Modern Drama, 9:2 ("September 1966) , pp. 153-164.

______. Ensayos sobre teatro hispanoamericano. Mexico: Sep-Setentas, 1974.

______. Historia del teatro hispanoamericano: siglos XIX y XX. Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1973.

"Declaraci6n de principios del primer seminario de teatro." Conjunto, Aho 3, No. 6 (enero-marzo 1968), pp. 4-6.

"De la comedia musical al teatro de protesta: Isidora Aguirre." Conjunto, No. 10 (1971), pp. 45-47. 363

Diaz, Jorge. "Reflections on the Chilean Theatre." Trans. Jean Pollitzer. The Drama Review, 14, No. 2 (Winter 1970), pp. 84-86.

Dowling, John. "The Mexico City Theatre, 1969." Latin American Theatre Review, 3, No. 2 (Spring 1970), pp. 55-66.------

Duran Cerda, Julio, ed. "Pr6logo: El teatro chileno de nuestros dias." Teatro chileno contemporaneo. Mexico: Aguilar, 1970.

Fuentes, Victor. "La creacidn colectiva del Teatro Experi­ mental de Cali." Popular Theater for Social Change. Ed. Gerardo Luzuriaga. Los Angeles: UCLA Center Pub- lications, 1978, pp. 338-348.

Gonzalez, Freire, Natividad. "Sobre dramas y dramaturgos." Unidn, VI, No. 4 (diciembre 1967) , pp. 232-242.

Halac, Ricardo. "La realidad argentina: 'El avidn negro' y El Grupo de Autores." El avidn negro. Roberto Cossa, et al. Buenos Aires: Talia, IF70, pp. 9-12.

Heliodoro, Barbara. "El momento actual en el teatro brasileno." Mundo Nuevo, No. 3 (diciembre 1968), pp. 79-83.

Holzapfel, Tamara. "A Mexican Medusa." Modern Drama, XII, No. 3 (December 1969), pp. 231-237.

Kaiser-Renoir, Eva Claudia. El grotesco criollo: estilo teatral de una §poca. La Habana: Casa de las Am§ricas, 19 77.

Layera, Ram6n. "The Latin American Theater of Social Pro­ test and Denunciation." Hispanic Literatures: Litera­ ture and Politics. Ed. J. Cruz Mendizabel. Published papers of the Second Annual Conference, October 8-9, 19 76. Indiana, Pennsylvania: Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1976, pp. 274-282.

Leal, Rine. En primera persona (1954-1966). La Habana: Instituto del Libro, 1967.

______. "Mesa Redonda: Hablan directores." Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), pp. 8-25.

______. "Notas sueltas sobre el teatro de Emilio Car- ballido." Casa de las Americas, V, No. 30 (mayo- junio 1965), pp. 96-99. 364

Leal, Rine. "Seis meses de teatro en pocas palabras." Casa de las Americas, II, Nos. 11-12 (marzo-iunio 1962), pp. 46-50.

Luzuriaga, Gerardo, and Richard Reeve, ed. Los clclsicos del teatro hispanoamericano. Mexico: Fondo de la Cultura Economica, 1975.

Lyday, Leon F., and George W. Woodyard, ed. Dramatists in Revolt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 19 76.

Lyon, John E. "The Argentine Theatre and the Problem of National Identity: A Critical Survey." Latin American Theatre Review, 5, No. 2 (Spring 1972), pp. 5-18.

Magana Esquivel, Antonio, ed. "Introduccidn." Teatro mexicano del siglo XX (1957-1964),vol. 98. MSxico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1970, pp. 7-24.

_____ . "Introduccidn." Teatro mexicano del siglo XX (T957-1964), vol. 99. Mdxico: Fondo de Cultura Econdmica, 1970, pp. 7-26.

Magana Esquivel, Antonio. "El teatro contempor^neo mexi­ cano." Inter-American Review of Bibliography. XIII, No. 4 (October-December 1963), pp. 402-423.

Miranda, Julio E. "Josd Triana o el conflicto." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, No. 230 (febrero 1969) , pp“ 436-444 .

______. Nueva literatura cubana. Madrid: Taurus, 19 71.

Monasterios, Ruben. "Los dramaturgos venezolanos, hoy." Conjunto, Ano 3, No. 9 (1969), pp. 38-49.

Montes-Huidobro, Matias. "El caso Dorr: El autor en el vdrtice del compromiso." Latin American Theatre Review, 11, No. 1 (Fall 1977), pp. 35-43.

______. Persona, vida y mascara en el teatro cubano. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 197 3.

Mora, Gabriela. "Notas sobre el teatro chileno actual." Inter-American Review of Bibliography, XVIII, No. 4 (October-December 196 8), pp. 417-4 21.

Morandi, Julio. "Argentina: un ano muy Censurado." Conjunto, Ano 3, No. 6 (enero-marzo 1968), pp. 9-95.

"El movimiento teatral chileno." Conjunto, No. 8 (abril- junio 1968), pp. 75-102. 365

Nomland, John B. Teatro mexicano contempor^neo (1900-1950). Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1967.

Novo, Salvador. "El teatro y la Revolucidn Mexicana." Letras Vencidas. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1962, pp. 127-154.

"Otra vez con Jorge Diaz." Primer Acto, No. 153 (febrero 1973), pp. 59-66.

Palls, Terry L. "The Theatre of the Absurd in Cuba After 1959." Latin American Literary Review, 4, No. 7 (Fall-Winter 1975), pp. 68-72.

Peden, Margaret Sayers. "Greek Myth in Contemporary Mexican Theater." Modern Drama, XII, No. 3 (December 1969), pp. 221-230.

Piga, Domingo. "Declaraci6n de principios del Departamento de Teatro de la Universidad de Chile." Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), pp. 99-102.

______. Dos generaciones del teatro chileno. Santiago: Escuela de Teatro de la Universidad de Chile, 1963. Cited in Carlos Miguel Sudrez Radillo. "El teatro actual y las universidades como sus principales fuerzas propulsoras." Inter-American Review of Bibliography, XXII, N o . “I (January-March 1972), pp. 18-29.

"Recoger la hazana de los muertos y entregarla a los vivos." Conjunto, No. 8 (abril-junio 1969), pp. 51-60.

Rojo, Grinor. "El teatro chileno contempor^neo (Notas para un ensayo de recapitulacidn," pp. 1-25. Personal copy of the manuscript later published as "Le thd&tre chilien contemporain." Europe, 54 annde, No. 570 (Octobre 1976), pp. 253-266.

______. Los orlgenes del teatro hispanoamericano con- tempordneo. Valparaiso: Editorial Universitaria de Valparaiso, 1972.

Schmidt, Donald L. "El teatro de Osvaldo Dragtin." Latin American Theatre Review, 2, No. 2 (Spring 1969), pp. 3-20.

"Siete autores en busca de un teatro." Conjunto, 3, No. 6 (enero-marzo 1968), pp. 7-23. 366

Skinner, Eugene R. "The Theater of Emilio Carballido: Spinning a Web.” Dramatists in Revolt. Ed. George W. Woodyard and Leon F. Lyday. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1976, pp. 19-36.

Soldrzano, Carlos. El teatro actual latinoamericano. Mdxico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1972.

______. "El teatro mexicano contempor^neo." Casa de las Americas, V, Nos. 26-29 (enero-abril 1965), pp. 99- JUT.----

______. "Los teatros universitarios de Mexico." Inter- American Review of Bibliography, XV, N. 1 (January- March 1965), pp. 29-34.

Suarez Radillo, Carlos Miguel. "Dos generaciones de la violencia en el teatro colombiano contempordneo." Lo social en el teatro hispanoamericano. Caracas: Equinoccio, 1976.

______. "El teatro chileno actual y las universidades como sus principales fuerzas propulsoras." Inter- American Review of Bibliography, XXII, No. 1 (January- March 1972), pp. 18-29.

______. "El teatro de los barrios en Venezuela." Popular Theater for Social Change. Ed. Gerardo Luzuriaga. Los Angeles: UCLA Center Publications, 1978, pp. 349- 362.

"El teatro actual." Casa de las Americas, IV, Nos. 22-23 (enero-abril 1964), pp. 95-107.

Tschudi, Lilian. Teatro argentino actual (1960-1972). Buenos Aires: Fernando Garcfa Cambeiro, 1974.

Tunberg, Karl A. "The New Cuban Theatre." The Drama Review, 14, No. 2 (Winter 1970), pp. 4 3-55.

Vadell, Jaime. "Cabildo." Conjunto, No. 7 (abril-junio 1968), pp. 91-93.

V^lez, Joseph F. "Una entrevista con Emilio Carballido." Latin American Theatre Review, 4, No. 2 (Fall 1973), pp. 17-31.

Woodyard, George W. "Social Awareness in Contemporary Spanish American Theater." Kentucky Romance Quarterly, XIV, No. 2 (1967), pp. 120-125“: 367

Woodyard, George W. "The Theatre of the Absurd in Spanish America." Comparative Drama, 3 (Fall 1969), pp. 183- 19 2.

______. "Toward a Radical Theatre in Spanish America." Contemporary Latin American Literature. Ed. Harvey L. Johnson and Philip B. Taylor. Houston: University of Houston, 1973, pp. 93-102.

General References on Contemporary Latin American Society

Affonso, Almino, et al. Movimiento campesino chileno. 2 vols. Santiago: Instituto de Capacitacidn e In- vestigaci6n en Reforma Agraria, 1970.

Aguilar, Luis Eduardo. Cuba: Prologue to Revolution. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1972.

Alexander, Robert J. The Per6n Era. New York: Columbia University Press, 1951.

Almond, Gabriel A. and Sydney Verba. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965.

Boorstein, Edward. Allende's Chile. New York: Inter­ nation Publishers, 1977.

Brandenberg, Frank. The Making of Modern Mexico. Engle­ wood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

Casal, Lourdes. El caso Padilla: Literatura y revolucidn en Cuba. New York: Ediciones Nueva AtlSntida, 1971.

_____ . "Literature and Society." Revolutionary Change Tn Latin America: Cuba. Ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 19 71, pp. 447-467.

Ciria, Alberto. "Peronism Yesterday and Today." Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 3 (Fall 1974), pp. 21-41.

Denton, Charles F. and Preston Lee Lawrence. Latin Ameri­ can Politics: A Functional Approach. Scranton: Chandler Publishing Company, 1972.

Dodson, Michael. "Priests and Peronism: Radical Clergy and Argentine Politics." Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 3 (Fall 1974), pp. 58-72. Dorner, Peter, ed. Land Reform in Latin America. Madison, Wisconsin: Land Economics, 1971.

D o s Santos, Theotonio. Concepto de clases sociales. Buenos Aires: Editorial Galerna, 19 73.

Farber, Samuel. Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 193 3-1960 Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1976.

Fayt, Carlos S. El politico armado: din^mica del proceso politico argentino (1960/1971). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Pannedrille, 1971.

Godio, Julio. La caida de Per6n: de junio a septiembre de 1955. Buenos Aires: Grdnica Editor, 1973.

Goldwert, Marvin. Democracy, Militarism and Nationalism in Argentina, 1930-1966. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972.

Gonz&lez Casanova, Pablo. La democracia en Mexico. Mexico Ediciones ERA, 1965..

______. "The Dynamics of an Agrarian and 'Semicapitalist' Revolution." Latin America: Reform or Revolution? Ed. James Petras and Maurice Zietlin. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 196 8, pp. 467-485.

Guerra Utrilla, Jos£ Gabriel. Los partidos politicos nacionales. Mexico: Editorial America, 1970.

Gunder Frank, Andre. Lumpenbourcfeoisie: Lumpendevelopment: Dependence, Class and Politics in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972.

Halperin Donghi, Tulio. Historia contemporgnea de America Latina. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1972.

Hansen, Roger D. La politics del desarrollo mexicano. Mexico: Siglo_Veintiuno Editores, 1976.

. "PRI Politics in the 1970s: Crisis or Continuity?" Contemporary Mexico. Ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer, and Edna Monz6n de Wilkie. Berkeley: Univer­ sity of California Press, 1976, pp. 389-401.

Hofstadter, Dan. Mexico: 1946-197 3. New York: Facts on File, 1974. 369 Horowitz, Irving Louis. "The Political Sociology of Cuban Communism." Revolutionary Change in Latin America: Cuba. Ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971, pp. 127-141.

Jaguaribe, Helio. Political Development: A General Theory and Latin American Case Study. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

Kirkpatrick, Jean. Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society: A Study of Peronist Argentina. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1971.

Loveman, Brian. Struggle in the Countryside: Politics and Rural Labor In Chile 1919-1973. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1976.

______. "The Transformation of the Chilean Countryside." Chile: Politics and Society. Ed. Arturo and J. Samuel Valenzuela. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1976, pp. 238-296.

McBride, George McCutcheon. Chile: Land and Society New York: American Geographical Society, 1936. Cited in Norma Stoltz Chinchilla and Marvin Sternberg. "Reform and Class Struggle in the Countryside." Latin American Perspectives, 1, No. 2 (Summer 1974), 106-128.

Menton, Seymour. Prose Fiction of the Cuban Revolution. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1975.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, ed. Revolutionary Change in Latin America: Cuba. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, l97l.

Morray, J. P. "The United States and Latin America." Latin America: Reform or Revolution? Ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968, pp. 99-119.

Needier, Martin C. "Problems in the Evaluation of the Mexican Political System." Contemporary Mexico. Ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer, and Edna Monz6n de Wilkie. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976, pp. 339-345.

Olivera de Bonfil, Alicia. "La iglesia en Mexico: 1926- 1970." Contemporary Mexico. Ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer, and Edna Monz6n de Wilkie. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976, pp. 295-316. 370

Paulston, Rolland G. "Education.11 Revolutionary Change in Latin America: Cuba. Ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971, pp. 375-397.

Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961.

Petras, James. Politics and Social Forces in Chilean Development"! Berkeley: University of California Press, 19697

______. "Revolution and Guerrilla Movements in Latin America: Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru." Latin America: Reform or Revolution? Ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968, pp. 329-369.

______, and Maurice Zeitlin, ed. Latin America: Reform or Revolution? Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publi- cations, Inc., 1968.

Portantiero, Juan C. "Dominant Classes and Political Crisis in Argentina Today." Latin American Perspec­ tives, 1, No. 3 (Fall 1974), pp. 95-120.

Purcell, John F. H., and Susan Kaufman. "Machine Politics and Socio-Economic Change in Mexico." Contemporary Mexico. Ed. James W. Wilkie, Michael G. Meyer, and Edna Monzdn de Wilkie. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976, pp. 348-366.

"Rebels Devestate Farm Area." New York Times, 2 July 1934, p. 6, col. 3.

Ruiz, Ramdn Eduardo. Cuba: The Making of a Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968.

Santos Martfnez, Pedro. La nueva Argentina, 1946-1955. 2 vols. Buenos Aires: Ediclones La Bastilla, 1976.

Scheer, Robert, and Maurice Zeitlin. Cuba: An American Tragedy. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd.,

Scott, Robert. Mexican Government in Transition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964. 371

Sigmund, Paul E. "Three Views of Allende's Chile." Chile; Politics and Society. Ed. Arturo and J. Samuel Valenzuela. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1976, pp. 115-134.

Silvert, Kalman H. The Conflict Society: Reaction and Revolution in Latin America-! New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1968.

Stavenhagen, Rodolfo. "Seven Fallacies About Latin America." Latin America: Reform or Revolution? Ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968, pp. 13-31.

Stoltz Chinchilla, Norma, and Marvin Sternberg. "Reform and Class Struggle in the Countryside." Latin Ameri­ can Perspectives, 1, No. 2 (Summer 1974), pp. 106-128.

"Strikers Entrenched in Chilean Revolt: 12 Dead As Cold Halts Carabineer Attacks." New York Times, 2 July 1934, p. 6, col. 3.

Suarez, Andres. Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 1959-1966. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, 1967.

Swift, Jeannine. Economic Development in Latin America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978.

Teubal, Miguel. "The Failure of Latin America's Economic Integration." Latin America: Reform or Revolution? Ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968, pp. 120-144.

Thomas, Hugh. Cuba: La lucha por la libertad. 3 vols. Barcelona: Ediciones Grijalba, 197 3.

Valenzuela, Arturo, and J. Samuel, ed. Chile: Politics and Society. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1976.

Wilkie, James W., Michael G. Meyer, and Edna Monzdn de Wilkie. Contemporary Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

World Bank. World Development Report, 1979. Washington: The World Bank, 1979.

Wynia, Gary W. The Politics of Latin American Development. Cambridge University Press, 1978. 372

Zeitlin, Maurice. "The Social Determinants of Political Democracy in Chile." Latin America: Reform or Revolu­ tion? Ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin. Green­ wich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968, pp. 220-234.