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FALL 2009 213 del investigador de desplazar el objeto histórico por la bibliografía que sobre él se ha escrito, o por las ideas que sobre ellas circulan. Por el contrario éste apreciará que la materia que compone la historia del teatro es efímera: “Teatro del presente, purgatorio del historiador. Teatro perdido, teatro de la muerte” (187). Precisamente el tomo tercero que cierra la serie de la Filosofía del Teatro de Jorge Dubatti tiene por título “El Teatro de los Muertos”. En suma, esta Filosofía del Teatro I marca nuevos rumbos a la teoría teatral e ilumina la productividad de las relaciones entre teatristas y teatrólogos en la Argentina. Eduardo Graham Universidad del Salvador – Buenos Aires Jáuregui, Carlos A., ed. The Conquest on Trial: Carvajal’s Complaint of the Indians in the Court of Death. Trans. Mark Smith-Soto and Carlos A. Jáuregui. University Park: Penn State U.P., 2008: 160 pp. In 1557, Luis Hurtado de Toledo published The Court of Chaste Love and The Court of Death. A theatrical work written by Miguel de Carvajal, with the title “escena XIX”, was published as part of that compendium of theatrical vignettes. As Carlos Jáuregui clarifies in his introduction, Complaint of the Indians is not an “escena” (scene) in the sense of being one subdivision of an act in a play; rather, the scenes of The Court of Death, while thematically interrelated and sharing a similar structure, are relatively autonomous dramatic vignettes”(3). Carvajal’s piece is amongst the first theatrical works published in Spain to have taken the Conquest of the New World as a central theme. Furthermore, the curious and mysterious history of the work, which includes questions of authorship and multiple redactions, greatly complicate the interpretation and categorization of Complaint of the Indians. In his thorough and insightful introduction, Carlos Jáuregui presents a valuable historical and contextual framework for the Complaint of the Indians. The scholar astutely delineates the correspondence between the Cortes de la Muerte to which Carvajal’s piece relates and the Medieval theatrical tradition of the Danzas de la Muerte that “flourished toward the end of the MiddleAges” (5).At the same time, Jáuregui recognizes the profound influence of Renaissance humanist thought in the Complaint of the Indians, as illustrated in the fact that he consistently makes note of the parallels between the utopian ideals of Las Casas and the Franciscan missionaries voiced by the Indians as well as by the three clergy in the play. Perhaps most thought provoking is the link established by the editor between Carvajal’s possible identity as a nuevo-converso and the various references made by the indigenous characters in the play to exile and banishment. The scholar posits the compelling idea that perhaps Complaint of the Indians was, to some extent, an appropriation by a New Christian of Jewish ancestry of the Lascasian arguments against the harsh treatment of the colonial natives. Such a maneuver would render 214 LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW Carvajal’s play quite transgressive since it would constitute not only a questioning of the Spanish Empire’s policy toward the New Christians, but also a deeply ironic observation about the contradiction between the policies of the Spanish Catholic Church toward the Native Americans in contrast with its view of the Peninsular New Christians. Conscious of the polisemic potential inherent in Carvajal’s play, Jáuregui resists imposing a particular reading of the play. Instead, he presents all of the available historical and critical data in order to inform rather than control the reading public’s understanding of the work. As a result, Jáuregui brings to a seemingly straightforward primary text a depth and richness that is sure to enthrall any scholar of Spanish American literature or culture. Furthermore, the editor is careful in his commentary throughout the text to avoid assumptions of prior knowledge on the part of his readership. His concise yet complete explanations of the literary and cultural context framing the piece make this edition particularly teachable as a classroom text. In addition, the side-by-side Spanish and English translations of the Complaint of the Indians make this...

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