Revolutionary Stages
Façade detail of the Teatro de los Insurgentes in San Ángel, Ciudad de México. The mosaic was created by Diego Rivera in 1953. | Source: Carl Campbell - https://www.flickr.com/photos/carlbcampbell/4880312325/
Much of today’s modern drama, from Broadway musicals to intellectual farces, descends from an extremely rich Hispanic theatrical and performance tradition. In this course students will study the trajectory of Hispanic dramatic literature and performance from indigenous rituals and dances, medieval mystery plays, Golden Age comedias, and revolutionary dramas denouncing colonial, dictatorial violence and oppressive politics of gender, sexuality and race up to the present day. Covering texts from Spain and Latin America, students will develop their knowledge of performance in different stages of conflict and struggle. The course will incorporate cinematic adaptations of plays, videos featuring memorable performances, readings of historical texts, as well as varied visual arts with which the texts were in dialogue.
Readings may feature authors such as Lope de Vega, Calderón, Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, Ana Caro, Sor Juana, Unamuno, Valle-Inclán, García Lorca, Vallejo, Boal, Vargas Llosa, Orozco Rosales, Puig, Dorfman, Gambaro, Pavlovsky, Buenaventura, Bondy, Hadad and others.
Required readings: Required readings and performance videos will be posted as links and PDFs on Canvas.
- Allen, Richard. Teatro hispanoamericano: una bibliografía anotada. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987.
- Arellano, Ignacio. Historia del teatro español del siglo XVII. Madrid: Cátedra, 2008.
- Arellano, Ignacio and José Antonio Rodríguez Garrido. El teatro en la Hispanoamérica colonial. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2008.
- Bial, Henry. “Introduction.” The Performance Studies Reader. Ed. H. Bial, 1–4. New York: Routledge, 2002.
- McKendrick, Malveena. Theatre in Spain, 1490-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.
- Ruiz Ramón, Francisco. Historia del teatro español (desde sus orígenes hasta 1900). Madrid: Cátedra, 2011.
- Scott Soufas, Teresa. Dramas of Distinction: Plays by Golden Age Women. Lexington: The U of Kentucky P, 1997.
- Taylor, Diana and Sarah J. Townsend, eds. Stages of Conflict: A Critical Anthology of Latin American Theater and Performance. Michigan: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2008.
- Taylor, Diana. Theatre of Crisis: Drama and Politics in Latin America. Lexington: The Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1991.
- Theatre/Theory/Theatre. Ed. Daniel Gerould. Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corp., 2000.
Prerequisites: SPAN 221; and SPAN 301 or equivalent expertise in written and spoken Spanish.
Language of instruction: Spanish