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Theatre after the Dictatorships: Developments in Chile and Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Abstract

Ian Watson and Susana Epstein went to Chile and Argentina in the summer of 1992 in order to interview several leading theatre artists about the differences the political changes in their countries had made to their own work and the work of their colleagues. Although, as the authors stress, they made no attempt to conduct a systematic study of the theatrical implications of the shift from authoritarianism to democracy, their findings suggest some parallels with the situation in Eastern Europe. Ian Watson, who heads the Theatre Division in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Rutgers University, Newark, is a theatre scholar whose main interests include contemporary Latin American theatre. Susana Epstein, an expatriate Argentine, is a Contributing Editor of The Drama Review.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes and References

1. The interview with Héctor and Amparo Noguera was conducted on 11 July 1992 in Santiago, Chile; the interviews with Eduardo Rovner and Eduardo Pavlovsky were conducted in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the former on 24 July 1992, the latter on 27 July 1992.

2. In keeping with Pavlovsky's work methods, rehearsals led to major changes in El Cardenal. The play's protagonist, an ageing actor who works as an emcee in a variety theatre on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, retains his nickname, the Cardinal. But the title of the piece has been changed to Globos Rojos (Red Balloons), which is the name of the theatre where he and his fellow marginal performers, two dancers from Thailand in their forties, appear four times a day in sequences reminiscent of Fellini's Ginger and Fred, interlaced with pithy, philosophical dialogues between the Cardinal and an imaginary friend of his in the audience.

3. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, ‘Acceptance Speech: the Medal of Honour for Literature from the National Arts Club’, New Yoark Times Book Review,7 02 1993, p.7Google Scholar.