Memory, Allegory, and Testimony in South American Theater: Upstaging Dictatorship (review)

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 remarkable play accessible to a broader reading audience, which could lead to a variety of informative comparative studies. In their role as conscientious translators, Mark Smith-Soto and Carlos Jáuregui provide in the footnotes alternate versions of passages where meaning could be significantly affected. In addition, they often include a rationale for the selection of one meaning over the other for inclusion in their translation. The editorial choice to provide both the Spanish and English text, as well as a facsimile of the 1557 edition, evinces a total transparency on the part of the scholars and greatly facilitates the production of future scholarly work on the Complaint of the Indians. The layout of the side-by-side primary texts is, at times, disconcerting to the reader of The Conquest on Trial. Also the copious footnotes provided beneath the English translation often overtake the primary text. Due to the sheer volume of the commentary, the use of endnotes may have been advisable. Nonetheless, these are minor details of what is overall a very well conceived and extremely useful book. Carmen Febles University of Wisconsin-Madison Puga, Ana Elena. Memory, Allegory, and Testimony in South American Theater: Upstaging Dictatorship. New York / London: Routledge, 2008: 284 pp. Ana Elena Puga’s study of theatre produced during the last dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil offers a new and needed perspective on the multiple varied roles of memory in theatre produced under duress. Each of the monograph’s four main chapters focuses on the theatrical responses of one playwright (or two collaborating playwrights, in the Brazilian case) to his or her native country’s FALL 2009 215 dictatorship. In addition to providing useful historical and biographical overviews, Puga examines how these five playwrights creatively embraced what Paul Ricoeur called an “ethics of memory,” with each chapter foregrounding one of four ethical “duties” related to memory: to remember, to inspire, to conceal, and to tell. Chapter one examines five plays by Uruguayan Carlos Manuel Varela (Alfonso y Clotilde, Los cuentos del final, Palabras en la arena, Interrogatorio en Elsinore: Después de la ratonera, and Crónica de la espera, all written between 1980 and 1986) and argues for the playwright’s strategic use of memory as an aesthetic and political achievement. Chapter two turns to famed Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal and three “historical allegories” –incorporating music, song, and occasionally dance — he wrote for Teatro de Arena during the 1960s: Arena conta Zumbi, Arena conta Tiradentes, and Arena conta Bolívar. The chapter not only retrieves these early “inspirational” plays, too often critically overshadowed by Boal’s later Theatre of the Oppressed, but also highlights the contributions of Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, with whom Boal co-authored two of the texts. In chapter three Puga considers in turn five plays by Argentinean dramatist Griselda Gambaro, each as an “abstract allegory” that “simultaneously reflects, shields against, and attempts to reshape” Argentina’s political reality (139). Casting a broader historical net than in her earlier chapters, the author...