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172 LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW la relación entre el fenómeno y su entorno social. Sostiene que cualquier intento de estudiar las manifestaciones artísticas / estéticas desvinculadas de la relación con dicho entorno anulan al sujeto enunciador y reducen la complejidad del acontecimiento. De esta manera, lo liminal importa como condición desde la cual se vive y se produce arte, y no únicamente como estrategias artísticas de cruce, siendo el actor un ente liminal entre el arte y lo real. Las experiencias de alteridad que promueve contribuyen a formar nuevas posibilidades de communitas, entendida ésta como un espacio otro, una anti-estructura en la que se suspenden las jerarquías y las relaciones entre iguales se dan espontáneamente, sin legislación. La otra columna que sostiene el estudio de Diéguez Caballero es la noción bajtiniana de la arquitectónica como acto ético y la forma estética de los actos éticos. Por ello trabaja con manifestaciones artísticas que pretenden mejorar la comunidad y relacionan al arte con la protesta, con la estatización de los gestos colectivos de resistencia y con las calidades de la memoria. María Natacha Koss Universidad de Buenos Aires Milleret, Margo. Latin American Women On/In Stages. Albany: SUNY P, 2004: 263 p. Margo Milleret’s Latin American Women On/In Stages convincingly puts to rest the misconception that women have contributed little to the history of Latin American theatre. From the original corpus of 120 woman-authored plays Milleret collected for her research, the study analyzes twenty-four plays by eighteen playwrights (b.1940-1960) from the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. If, as Milleret argues in her introduction, “Domesticating Drama,” the theatre constitutes a site where women have been “domesticated,” or, subjugated, then she also persuasively shows that female dramatists during the latter half of the twentieth century have made great strides in “domesticating” the theatre by making it a place where women’s spaces and experiences can occupy center stage. The plays included in this study showcase women on theatrical stages and their constantly evolving identities in different stages of life. Accordingly, the book is organized along the contours of a conventional female life cycle; Chapter 1 looks at male-female relationships during women’s formative years, Chapter 2 focuses on mother-daughter relationships during the child rearing years and Chapter 3 examines aging during middle age and menopause. Each chapter includes comparative close readings of the plays through the lens of a wide range of theories about gender from the social sciences and the theatre. In Chapter 1, for example, Milleret uses research on marriage and family and theories of theatrical space treat the themes of romantic love, sexual politics and gender bending in the context of heterosexual love relationships. She argues that plays byAna Istarú, Inés Margarita Stranger, Consuelo SPRING 2008 173 de Castro, LeilahAssunção, Sabina Berman, Estela Leño, and Thais Erminy critique patriarchal male-female relations and show how reclaiming the domestic space of the home is paramount in asserting female identity and equitable gender relations. Concepts from female developmental psychology and scholarship on the cult of motherhood in Latin America frame Milleret’s argument in Chapter 2. In this section, she scrutinizes the intergenerational mother-daughter relationship as another site of female socialization. Milleret contends that in plays with rebellious daughters by Isis Baião,Ana Istarú, Thais Erminy, and Rebecca Bowman, “patriarchal mothers” impose traditional gender roles and the mother-daughter relationship is ultimately destructive, whereas in dramas by Pilar Campesino, Maria Adelaide Amaral, Susana Torres Molina, and Diana Raznovich, older mothers and daughters find ways to renegotiate their relationship and to expand their definitions of female social roles. Chapter 3 charts new terrain by identifying a group of plays that stage the taboo subjects of aging and sexuality. Milleret studies societal messages about aging and physical appearance in works with middle-aged protagonists by Lidia Rebrij and Isis Baião, the playful search for new identities by women who refuse the sexless stereotypes of postmenopausal femininity in plays by Mariela Romero, Leilah Assunção, Gabriela Fiore, and...

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