Análisis de la dramaturgia argentina actual by, José-Luis García Barrientos (review)

Argentina holds a prominent position in the theatre written and staged in the Spanish-speaking world. Deeply determined by traumatic events like the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional or the economic crisis known as the corralito, Argentina’s theatrical life has never ceased to attract the interest of academics worldwide. This book provides an overview of the current situation and forms part of a larger project led by theatre specialist José-Luis García Barrientos aimed at mapping the theatrical activity taking place nowadays in the Hispanic world.

Coordinated by Luis Emilio Abraham, the volume begins with a historical introduction by Beatriz Trastoy. Oversimplifying her words, it may be said that most Argentinian dramatists share a critical interest in the recent history of their country. This commitment does not prevent them, though, from questioning the limits of theatrical representation or incorporating formal innovations. The works and playwrights analyzed give evidence of this conciliation. Ricardo Bartís, Daniel Veronese, Javier Daulte, Patricia Suárez, Rafael Spregelburd, Martín Giner, and Federico León are the playwrights chosen. Seven names might not seem enough to cover the dramatic production of a country like Argentina, yet the selection is highly pertinent and gives the opportunity to approach the object of study without feeling overwhelmed by it.

The structure is simple but effective; every author is approached from a micro and a macroscopic perspective. Each essay focuses on a play representative of the dramatist’s work and then moves to a synthetic view of his/her whole dramaturgy. This approach provides an insightful account of each dramatist’s views on theatre and at the same time proves the soundness of García Barrientos’s analytical method, which he terms dramatología. Fully established in Cómo se comenta una obra de teatro (2001), this theoretical framework, indebted to Genette’s narratology, has been gaining academic respect as its consistency and applicability become more evident. All the analyses start from its principles, some applying them strictly, others adapting the categories. The general objective is, in any case, the same: to study the plays from a rigorously specific instance, that is, as texts meant to be staged and, as such, determined by the exigencies of theatrical representation.

Ignacio Gutiérrez tackles Bartís, whose position in the book points both to his age (a little higher than that of the other authors) and his influence on the younger generation. His discussion of the play La pesca is eloquent in its treatment of historical and formal concerns as well as of Bartís’s debts to postmodern poetics. Veronese’s Mujeres soñaron caballos, analyzed by Daniel Israel, can also be connected to this search for new ways of expressing the Argentine identity. Full of psychoanalytical resonances, dream-like sequences, and absurd dialogues, Veronese’s take on personal and national issues, as García Barrientos’s method shows, does not neglect formal experimentation; quite the opposite.

Less aggressive, but perhaps more imaginative, is Daulte’s play ¿Estás ahí?, brilliantly studied by García Barrientos. This is a supernatural comedy that, even if less concerned with sociopolitical matters, exemplifies Daulte’s skills in his manipulation of theatrical language. As for Patricia Suárez, it is her collection of short pieces La Germania that draws the attention of Paulo A. Olivares. All these plays deal with one of the ugliest episodes of the Argentinian past: the arrival of Nazi refugees under Perón’s rule. In the second part of his analysis, Olivares links Suárez’s interest in history with her rewriting of social, political, and cultural narratives.

Abraham’s study focuses on Spregeldburd’s Heptalogía de Hieronymous Bosch, which is based on the Dutch painter’s Mesa de los pecados capitales, a fresco in which nothing makes sense. La estupidez, chosen as representative of this absurdist approach, is a challenging piece that, despite its nonsensical nature, proves decipherable in the context of the dramatological categories. The remaining...