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Cuban Routes of Avant-Garde Theatre: Havana, New York, Miami, 1965-1991

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Cuban Routes of Avant-Garde Theatre: Havana, New York, Miami, 1965-1991 Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2016 Cuban Routes of Avant-Garde Theatre: Havana, New York, Miami, 1965-1991. Eric Mayer-Garcia Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Mayer-Garcia, Eric, "Cuban Routes of Avant-Garde Theatre: Havana, New York, Miami, 1965-1991." (2016). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 36. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/36 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. CUBAN ROUTES OF AVANT-GARDE THEATRE: HAVANA, NEW YORK, MIAMI, 1965-1991 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The School of Theatre by Eric Mayer-García B.A., University of Washington, 2005 May 2016 © 2016 Eric Mayer-García All rights reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to begin my acknowledgments by recognizing the intellectual rigor and inspiration of Solimar Otero, who has guided me in the study of culture, both professionally and through rich ongoing exchanges in our lives together. Without Dr. Otero’s radical influence, which has ignited a flame in me for cultural criticism and helped me to recognize that flame as my own, I would never have undertaken or completed the writing of this dissertation. I have been extremely lucky to have John Fletcher as my dissertation director. Dr. Fletcher has guided me through my course of study at LSU and has had a hand in shaping the work of this dissertation from its beginnings in fellowship proposals three years ago. Without his careful eye and critical generosity this project would not be at the level that it is today, and I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish. I have been extremely fortunate to have the guidance of Lillian Manzor, who has given her time and expertise generously to develop the rigor and depth of this project. She has pushed me from our early meetings to apply challenging theories into my reading of the archive and to incorporate the latest essays in Cuban Studies. Almost none of the history captured in this dissertation would be possible to know or write without Dr. Manzor’s scholarship, her efforts in building the incredible Cuban and Latina/o theatre collections at University of Miami, and her pioneering of the Cuban Theatre Digital Archive. I would like to acknowledge the guidance of my Performance Studies advisor, Patricia Suchy, who forever unsettled my understanding of performance in her Bakhtin seminar. Dr. Suchy’s deep thought and relentless pursuit of a better theory has been inspirational to me in embracing the unfinalizability of research, writing, performance, and life. I must also acknowledge Shannon Walsh for her guidance in the ongoing development of my scholarship, and her thoughtful questioning of my research at all levels of this process. I am grateful for the support and wisdom iii of the knowledgeable William Demastes, whose expertise in theatre studies has added tremendously to the development of this project over the last two years. I deeply thank my collaborators who gave freely of their expertise and experiences for this project, including Ana Olivarez-Levinson, Teresa María Rojas, Alberto Sarraín, Matias Montes Huidobro, Yara González, Pedro Pérez Sarduy, and Roberto Gacio. I must also acknowledge the faculty and archivists at the Cuban Heritage Collection, whose work and generous support provided me with the resources I needed to conduct this research, including María Estorino, Meiyolet Méndez, Lesbia Varona, Esperanza Varona, Natalie Baur, Gladys Gómez-Rossie, Annie Sansone-Martínez, and Rosa María Ortiz. This dissertation would not be possible without the scholarship, writing, and generous mentoring of scholars and artists in the intersecting fields of Latina/o, Latin American, and Cuban Theatre Studies, including Jorge Huerta, Caridad Svich, Patricia Ybarra, Omar Valiño, Beatrice Rizk, Jimmy Noriega, Analola Santana, Migdalia Cruz, Jean Graham-Jones, Kimberly del Busto Ramírez, Teresa Marrero, Jon Rossini, Claudia Tatinge Nascimento, Adam Versenyi, Oliver Mayer, Noe Montez, Patricia Herrera, Irma Mayorga, Claudia Villegas-Silva, Gloria Waldman, Laurie Frederik, and Carlos Espinosa. I would like to especially acknowledge the role of Femi Euba in shaping my understanding of theatre as a scholar and a director. I have a deep gratitude for the amazing faculty that have guided my knowledge, scholarship, research practice, and professional development while at LSU, including Alan Sikes, Les Wade, Kristin Sosnowsky, Elena Castro, Adelaide Russo, Joyce Jackson, Ruth Bowman, Rachel Hall, Laura Martins, Caroline Ware, William Boelhower, Sharon Weltman, Andrea Morris, Jacqueline Bach, Devyn Spence Benson, Chris Barrett, and Benjamin Kahan. iv I must acknowledge the theatre artists that guided my artistic development and supported my journey to become a scholar. I would like to thank Marshall Hughes for guiding me as an actor and director. I am also indebted to Joseph Lavy and Zhenya Lavy for introducing me to Grotowski-inspired theatre, and Troy Mink for teaching me camp as a practice in everyday life. Finally, I would like to thank my mother Sonia G. Mayer and my father Richard Mayer for their love and support. My family has been incredibly supportive throughout my academic career, especially my sisters Adrianna Mayer and Alyssa Anaya, and my brother-in-law Rai Otero. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................iii ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: AVANT-GARDE WITHOUT BORDERS..............................1 CHAPTER 2. PERFORMATIVE PALIMPSESTS: TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF CUBAN AVANT-GARDE PRACTICE......................................................................................................37 CHAPTER 3. “FEELING BROWN” LIKE YOU: EL NUEVO TEATRO, CREACIÓN COLECTIVA, AND TRANS-LATINO AFFECT......................................................................118 CHAPTER 4. UNDOING CUBANNESS AND HETEROSEXIST NATIONALISMS IN TEATRO DE LA CRUELDAD..................................................................................................181 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION....................................................................................................242 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................261 VITA............................................................................................................................................280 vi ABSTRACT My dissertation interrogates how the movement of artists between Havana, New York, and Miami shaped experimental theatre aesthetics, formed a shared discourse of theatrical thought, and introduced a particular vein of experimental practices into U.S. American avant- garde theatre, especially as it intersects with U.S. Latina/o theatre and LGBTQ theatre. I interrogate the theatre history of these three cities as horizontal and contiguous, challenging historical narratives of U.S. American neocolonial dominance and superiority, as well as narratives of diaspora that position Havana as an authentic origin. The central contribution of my dissertation is to synthesize the archival evidence that documents connections between the theatre scenes of these three cities, while repositioning well-known artists like Obie Award- winning author and director, María Irene Fornés and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and director Nilo Cruz within the avant-garde traditions touching Greater Cuba (Cuba and its diasporas). By doing so, this study addresses the absence of scholarship in English-language U.S. American Theatre Studies that discusses Latin American and U.S. Latina/o theatre as cutting-edge and artistically innovative vis-à-vis global and Western theatre movements. Each chapter in my dissertation follows a distinct aesthetic movement or theatrical phenomenon, arguing that each approach experimented with feeling "Cuban" in a unique way. Artists thrust Cuban being upon a stage where it was affectively transferred across difference to also become something beyond the reaches of the island and the diaspora. Avant-garde theatre gave these artists a potent set of tools to deterritorialize the stories, tropes, motifs, symbols, aesthetics, and performance practices associated with an extremely nationalistic theatrical tradition. Through avant-garde theatre, these theatre artists moved experiences particular to Greater Cuba into the realm of the "universal" human experience. Cuban avant-garde practice vii Cubanizes the "universal" through its ways of reinterpreting modernisms and universalizes the Cuban by moving its perspective—its way of looking at the world—to the center. The act of positioning a Havana-Cuban, Miami-Cuban, or New York-Cuban expression as the voice of the "universal” human
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