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Book Reviews SEVERINO JOAo ALBUQUERQUE. Violent Acts: A Study of Contemporary Latin American Theatre. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1991. Pp. 297· $39.95; $19.95 (PB). Violent Acts by Severino Joao Albuquerque brings together in one booK informed critical readings of both Brazilian and Spanish American plays that were written in approximately three decades following the Cuban Revolution. While the title and the focus on violence may appear to accede to stereotypes about Latin America and its "violent realities " (22), Albuquerque nevertheless performs a tenable function in this book. Focusing on violence both as theme and as verbal and nonverbal expressions, as examples of the "multisignation of the theatre" (271), Albuquerque places his textual analyses within the framework of sociopolitical events. He reminds us that Latin American playwrights "have figured prominently among those segments of society that are most committed to social and political change in the continent" (15). Although not all Latin American theater can or should be reduced to a sociopolitical sphere, there has always been an important relationship between theater and society. Unlike practices in the United States, in Latin American much of the "power struggle is carried on at the verballevel , with the press, writers, and playwrights playing a crucial role in the process" (19). By exposing the mechanisms of oppression, to paraphrase the Colombian Enrique Buenaventura, the playwrights hope to undermine the oppressors and work for the good of the oppressed (16). Basing his approach on the semiotic perspective of Elam, Pavis, and Kowzan, Albuquerque explores violence as both a pertinent theme and a mode of expression. Violent Acts consists of an introduction and conclusion and five core chapters that are divided according to the type ofviolence analyzed. In chapters one and two, verbal and nonverbal signs are the two larger categories that establish the critical bases upon which the following three essays rest. Chapter One considers the two forms ofverbal implementations of violence in the dramatic texts, those "violative modes" of the primary text (categoModern Drama, 37 (1994) 530 Book Reviews 531 rized as "abusives," "threatives," "reportives," "nonsensives," bombardives," and "torturives "); in the second part of the chapter, those dramatic elements called into play by what Albuquerque refers to as the "directive functions ofthe side text," or the stage directions and other printed elements. In Chapter Two, kinesics, proxemics, as well as props, lighting, and sound effects are examined. In Chapter Three, he examines the representation ofpolitical repression and resistance; each of the chapter's five sections depicts the contingencies of repression within a different framework, including parent-child (for example, Gambaro's "El desatino,"), teacher-student (Athayde's Apareceu a Margarida ), or society-individual (Carballido's Un pequeno dia de ira) relationships. In Chapter Four, Albuquerque analyzes scenes from sixteen plays that examine "the interaction between the verbal and nonverbal languages of violence in a stage representation of torture " (228). In Chapter Five, under discussion are ten two-character plays that offer dramatic and theatrical representations ofthe "violent double," or plays in which the duality of one person or the tensions between two individuals are played out in a world of violence . Examples of well-known plays in this category include Jorge Diaz's El cepillo de dientes, Maruxa Vilalta's Esta nochejuntos, anuindonos tanto, Jose Vicente's 0 assaIto, and PHnio Marcos's Dois perdidos numa noite suja. Because of his categories, some plays are treated in each chapter according to the different aspects of the representation of violence. For example, Dfaz's El cepilJo de dientes, Gambaro's plays (El campo, El desatino and Los siameses) or Leilah Assun9ao's Fala baixo sendo eu grito (1977), are analyzed from the perspective oftheir use ofverbal and nonverbal violence and their representations of violent personal interactions. One is led to question whether it was appropriate or required to introduce such terminology as "violatives," "abusives," "distortives," "nonsensives" and "torturives" an especially torturous word; to resort to such vocabulary may have a negative impact on the reader, since its effect is almost to anesthetize the violence it describes, much like the act of the victimizers themselves. Such excessive categorization seems more suitable to a dissertation format and in this context appears to be more...

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