Contemporary Auto/Biographical Theatre in Latin America

Self, Esteemed: Contemporary Auto/biographical Theatre in Latin America By Julie Ann Ward A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Francine Masiello, Co-chair Professor Candace Slater, Co-chair Professor Natalia Brizuela Professor Anne Walsh Spring 2013 1 Abstract Self, Esteemed: Contemporary Auto/biographical Theatre in Latin America by Julie Ann Ward Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Berkeley Professor Francine Masiello, Co-chair Professor Candace Slater, Co-chair In this dissertation, I argue that contemporary auto/biographical theatre questions, on the one hand, the concept of the self as an individual with clearly defined borders between “I” and other and, on the other, the very possibility of representing reality onstage. Contemporary Latin American theatre is saturated with auto/biographical plays in which onstage actors play their real-life selves and family members, representing events from history as well as their own personal stories. Looking at 21st-century plays from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, I also note that auto/biographical representation in the theatre allows for an understanding of the life story as a collective endeavor rather than the work of a lone individual. This type of dramatic representation positions the theatrical work as one among many sources of truth. By insisting on the reality of portrayed events, auto/biographical plays ask the theatregoer to accept the “true” nature of the content and, simultaneously, the fiction of the theatre. In the opening chapter, an overarching theoretical introduction, I draw on auto/biography studies, testimonio criticism, documentary film theory and the concept of postdramatic theatre to examine the relationship between director/author and actor/witness. The actor, by playing the role of him- or herself, creates an autobiography through the signs of the theatre: voice, gesture, language, etc. However, the director/author (often one and the same person) plays the part of biographer by arranging the actor’s words and designing their activity onstage. Over the next four chapters I analyze the strategies employed in contemporary plays – including works by Argentine, Brazilian and Mexican playwrights (Lola Arias, Márcio Freitas, Christiane Jatahy, Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, Gabino Rodríguez, and Vivi Tellas) – for creating new auto/biographical pacts between spectator and play. By placing the biographied actor onstage, the plays ask the spectator to believe that their version of the truth is, in some way, unmediated. The fact that the onstage body is the same one that experienced the presented events gives the production immediacy and a sense of being “true”. At the same time, however, the theatrical apparatus as a whole forces audiences to recognize the hand that the directors and authors have in relaying that “truth.” Directors and authors often interview their subjects and use their exact words, in an edited form, as the basis for their scripts. Similarly, spectators must recognize the collaboration that occurs in any theatrical production 2 between various crew members, actors, director, and the audience itself. The very nature of the theatre precludes the possibility of the unmediated autobiography that tantalizes the audience. Chapter two deals with the treatment of the concept of truth in documentary theatre, by looking at various critics’ use of the term “truth” and its role in Jatahy’s play A Falta Que Nos Move. Chapter three demonstrates the way that so-called verbatim theatre fetishizes testimonial language, separating the original event from the language used to speak about it, with Freitas’ Sem Falsidades. Chapter four examines the representation of performers’ family members in auto/biographical plays, focusing on Lagartijas’ El rumor del incendio and Arias’ Mi vida después. The final chapter considers the ethics of the representation of the real, analyzing Rodríguez’ Montserrat. By putting the actor/witness onstage and forming a pact with the audience in which truth and fiction coexist, these plays sketch out new ways of understanding authorship, auto/biographical authority. The possibilities of theatre itself -- what it can potentially represent and how it interacts with reality -- are expanded in contemporary Latin American auto/biographical theatre. i To the memory of Aline Jackson. ii Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iii Introduction .................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: The Artisans of Aura: Authorship in Auto/biographical Theatre ................................. 1 Chapter 2: The Truthiness of Documentary: How We Talk About Truth in Theatre .................. 17 Chapter 3: The Problem of Verbatim: The Fetishization of Language ........................................ 30 Chapter 4. The Limits of the Self: Performing Family ................................................................. 53 Chapter 5. Dissecting the Truth: The Responsibilities of the Real in Contemporary Culture ..... 77 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 102 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 105 iii List of Figures Figure 1 Vivi Tellas.. .................................................................................................................... 13 Figure 2 Graciela Ninio, Vivi Tellas' mother, and Luisa Ninio, her aunt. .................................... 13 Figure 3 Posed photographs of actresses of Sem Falsidades ........................................................ 33 Figure 4 Slide from Sem Falsidades depicting the betrayed actress, her castmates and Freitas as the angry director. ......................................................................................................................... 50 Figure 5 "Revolution is not a dinner party, [. .]” ....................................................................... 58 Figure 6 Mariano Speratti’s father, 1966. ..................................................................................... 61 Figure 7 Liza Casullo’s parents, 1981 .......................................................................................... 62 Figure 8 Ana Amado and César Masetti.. ..................................................................................... 66 Figure 9 Passport of Margarita Urías Hermosillo ......................................................................... 72 Figure 10 Vanina Falco with her mother and brother, 1978 ......................................................... 73 Figure 11 Vanina Falco and her brother, 1980 ............................................................................. 74 Figure 12 José Rodríguez searches for the tree where Montserrat's ashes were scattered. .......... 80 Figure 13 Gabino Rodríguez dances during a performance of Montserrat. ................................. 86 Figure 14 Screenshot of Gabino's videochat, posted on the blog. ................................................ 94 iv Introduction ¿por la Reforma Carmen me decía “no pesa el aire, aquí siempre es octubre”, o se lo dijo a otro que he perdido o yo lo invento y nadie me lo ha dicho? Octavio Paz, Piedra de sol In the little, black-box theatre Foro Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City, a small audience watches as three actors read from the Mexican constitution, reenact guerrilla actions and government repression that took place forty years earlier using toy soldiers and a fish tank, and recite lines from a woman’s personal archive of letters and diaries. The audience is given to believe that the main character, Comandante Margarita, was a real, live person whose political consciousness awakened from her contact with the teachers’ union in northern Mexico, and who spent time in prison as a result of her participation in guerrilla activities. At the end of the play, Luisa Pardo, playing Margarita, smokes a cigarette and talks the audience through her post-revolutionary life, naming lovers, children, and workplaces. When she arrives at the name of her daughter, “La Luisita”, born in 1983, my heart stops. I know that Luisa is the name of the actress playing Margarita, and had taken note that she was born in 1983 when I read the program, because that is the year that I was born, too. Confirming my suspicions, Luisa Pardo makes unnerving eye contact with me as she tells the audience that Margarita died of lung cancer, that she is Luisita, her daughter. I was the unsuspecting, marveled spectator the play was meant to surprise. Pardo made unflinching eye contact with me as she revealed her relationship to Margarita and, I felt, registered my growing realization that what I had just witnessed was not a fiction against the backdrop of reality, but a true-to-life biography. The sensation upon understanding

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