La crueldad en el teatro de Matías Montes Huidobro (review)

notables obsesiones sino leerlo a contracorriente, estudiarlo en el contexto de los nuevos escritores latinoamericanos, y enfrentar sus nuevas teorizaciones sobre el arte de novelar con su propia práctica novelística. OSWALDO ESTRADA The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Falcón Paradí, Arístides. La crueldad en el teatro de Matías Montes Huidobro. Boulder: Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies, 2006. 226 pp. In La crueldad en el teatro de Matías Montes Huidobro, Arístides Falcón Paradí sets out to study the work of the Cuban author through the lens of Antonin Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, developed in The Theatre and Its Double (1938). While Falcón Paradí recognizes in his introduction that many believe “la influencia artaudiana entró indirectamente a través del absurdo europeo en Hispanoamérica” (3), his book shows how the playwright’s use of gesture, light, ritual, and stage space stem from these ideas first presented by Artaud. Falcón Paradí divides the playwright’s work into three key stages by analyzing the distinct relations of Montes Huidobro’s plays to the theatre of cruelty, as well as by situating each play historically. In the first of these stages (195059 ), an interest in the theatre of cruelty begins to emerge. In the second stage during the time of the Revolution (1959-61), however, this interest is left aside for Brechtian techniques more able to motivate the masses and then returns with an even greater zeal. In the third and final stage, marked by the playwright ’s exile in the United States (1961- ), Artaudian influences once again dominate through the use of words as symbols and ritualistic elements even while the plays treat different thematic concerns. In short, Falcón Paradí signals both the influence of Artaud in the dramatic work of Montes Huidobro and an intensification of this influence over the playwright’s career. Falcón Paradí begins his book by offering a panorama of “la vanguardia teatral hispanoamericana” (5) as well as by locating contemporary Cuban theatre within it. By highlighting the artistic and theatrical influences from Italy, France, and the United States during this period, he creates a backdrop for the rest of the book centered on one of these European influences – that of Artaud. The chapter aptly ends by summarizing what little existing criticism there is on Artaudian theory in Latin American, and especially Cuban theatre. In the second chapter Falcón Paradí begins his analysis of the first stage of Montes Huidobro’s theatre (1950-59), using the plays Sobre las mismas rocas (1951) and Los acosados (1959) as examples of the period. He suggests that this concern with the theatre of cruelty evidences itself in ritual characteristics, 118 Reseñas 109-124 Reseñas copia 13/9/10 11:12 Página 118 use of stage space and light, contrasts between verbal and extra-verbal codes, dualisms, and concern with time and metaphysics. As a more specific example , in Sobre las mismas rocas Falcón Paradí cites the creation of two contrasting worlds, the sacred and the profane, brought into being through the use of sound, such as hollering, loud noises, and a choir, and light, including fog and different illumination techniques. The third chapter discusses theatre of the Cuban Revolution (1959-61) and Montes Huidobro’s place in it. Because of the need to motivate the masses, plays during the Revolution most often treated present-day events, were realist in style, required few props and simple stage spaces, and employed Brechtian techniques. Falcón Paradí cites Montes Huidobro’s plays La Botija (1960) and El tiro por la culata (1961), both strongly tied to Brechtian theatre, as examples of this period in which the playwright supported the promises of the Revolution . The fourth chapter continues with the theatre of the Revolution but focuses on a change in the playwright toward a more critical theatre, at the time when he chooses exile. In these three plays, Gas en los poros (1960), La sal de los muertos (1960), and La madre y la guillotina (1961), designated by Escarpenter as “la trilogía de la crueldad,” Montes Huidobro returns to Artaudian techniques and likewise...