Reviewed by:

• Seeking Common Ground: Latinx and Latin American Theatre and Performance ed. by Trevor Boffone, Teresa Marrero and Chantal Rodriguez
• Dennis Sloan

In a previous book, Encuentro: Latinx Performance for the New American Theatre (2019), editors Trevor Boffone, Teresa Marrero, and Chantal Rodriguez paired play scripts from the 2014 Latino Theater Center of Los Angeles/Latinx Theatre Commons Encuentro festival with critical introductions by scholars of Latinx theatre. In Seeking Common Ground: Latinx and Latin American Theatre, the same editors offer a detailed portrait of the subsequent 2017 Encuentro de las Americas, which brought together artists and scholars from six countries for three weeks of performances, film screenings, workshops, and discussions. With more than twenty contributors, Seeking Common Ground is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in recent and ongoing developments in Latinx and Latin American theatre.

Like the festival it chronicles, Seeking Common Ground features diverse offerings. Boffone, Marrero, and Rodriguez divide the bulk of the volume into four themed parts, each designed to be anchored by a full play script coupled with a critical introduction. The editors supplement each section with interviews, “snapshots,” and “profiles” that summarize other festival artists and events. The result is as complete an understanding of the proceedings as one could hope to achieve without having attended in person.

Section One, “Traversing Boundaries of Gender and Sexuality,” is anchored by Evelina Fernández’s Dementia, a 2002 play that explores HIV/AIDS in the Latinx community. This section also describes an existentialist contemplation of the HIV/AIDS crisis by Cuban playwright José Milián and a wordless, gender-bent adaptation of The Odyssey produced by Mexico City’s Organización Secreta Teatro. Section Two, “Staging Transnational Realities of Race, Ethnicity, and Class,” highlights Ropa Intima, a Peruvian adaptation of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel and Miss Julia, a Colombian adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Section Three, “The State, Politics, and Lived Experience,” the book’s most US-centric, includes the full script of Alex Alpharaoh’s highly impactful WET: A DACAmented Journey and an account of Deferred Action, a DACA-based play created by Dallas’s Cara Mía Theater Company and Dallas Theater Center, among other offerings. The final section is the least cohesive, in part because it lacks the anchoring play promised in the introduction. Though the short pieces and excerpts in this section are interesting and informative, “Music and Autobiographical Performance” seems an awkward umbrella under which to bring together these remaining festival productions.

Seeking Common Ground’s diversity of offerings is one of its many strengths. The “snapshots,” “profiles,” and critical introductions allow the reader to engage with works whose publication might not have been possible or feasible. It is sometimes difficult, however, to identify what distinguishes a “snapshot” from a “profile,” or [End Page 147] either of these from a critical introduction; some sections also include pieces that defy these established categories. The resulting structure can be exhilarating, but also confusing. Additionally, the volume would benefit from a strong copyedit to reduce typographical errors and other minor errata.

The anthology’s title, Seeking Common Ground, communicates the editors’ desire to reflect upon the 2017 Encuentro’s central goal: to connect Latinx and Latin American theatre artists through explorations of shared values, practices, and concerns. The theme of common ground is woven through many of the original pieces written for the anthology, but as a question rather than as a thesis. Ultimately, the editors find, the festival revealed as many differences among participants as commonalities; this, it turns out, is a symbol of the festival’s value rather than its failure. In recording the festival’s work, Boffone, Marrero, and Rodriguez continue the vital and too-rarely attempted task of documenting Latinx and Latin American theatre. The collection is a critical contribution both to the written archive of such works and to anyone looking to stage more of them.

审核人：

• 寻求共同点：拉丁裔和拉丁美洲戏剧与表演版。通过 Trevor Boffone、Teresa Marrero 和 Chantal Rodriguez
• 丹尼斯·斯隆

在上一本书《Encuentro：新美国剧院的拉丁表演》（2019 年）中，编辑 Trevor Boffone、Teresa Marrero 和 Chantal Rodriguez 将 2014 年洛杉矶拉丁裔剧院中心/Latinx Theatre Commons Encuentro 节的剧本与评论性介绍配对拉丁戏剧学者。在寻求共同点：拉丁裔和拉丁美洲剧院，同一编辑详细描述了随后的 2017 Encuentro de las Americas，它汇集了来自六个国家的艺术家和学者，进行了为期三周的表演、电影放映、研讨会和讨论。拥有二十多个贡献者，寻求共同点对于任何对拉丁美洲和拉丁美洲戏剧的近期和持续发展感兴趣的人来说，都是宝贵的资源。

就像它记录的节日一样，Seeking Common Ground提供多样化的产品。Boffone、Marrero 和 Rodriguez 将本书的大部分内容分为四个主题部分，每个部分都设计为以完整的剧本和关键介绍为基础。编辑们用采访、“快照”和总结其他音乐节艺术家和活动的“简介”来补充每个部分。其结果是在没有亲自出席的情况下完全了解会议进程。

第一部分“穿越性别和性行为的边界”以伊芙琳娜·费尔南德斯 (Evelina Fernández) 的痴呆症为主题，这是一部 2002 年的戏剧，探讨了拉丁裔社区的艾滋病毒/艾滋病。本节还介绍了古巴剧作家何塞·米利安对艾滋病毒/艾滋病危机的存在主义思考，以及墨西哥城秘密剧院制作的无言、性别歧视的《奥德赛》改编版。第二部分，“展示种族、族裔和阶级的跨国现实”，突出了Ropa Intima，秘鲁改编自 Lynn Nottage 的内衣和朱莉娅小姐，哥伦比亚改编自斯特林堡的朱莉小姐. 第三部分，“国家、政治和生活经验”，这本书最以美国为中心，包括 Alex Alpharaoh 极具影响力的WET 的完整剧本：一段 DACAmented 的旅程和延迟行动的描述，这是一部由达拉斯的 DACA 创作的基于 DACA 的戏剧Cara Mía Theatre Company 和达拉斯剧院中心等。最后一部分是最没有凝聚力的，部分原因是它缺少引言中承诺的锚定游戏。尽管本节中的短片和摘录很有趣且信息丰富，但“音乐和自传体表演”似乎是把这些剩余的节日作品汇集在一起​​的笨拙保护伞。

Seeking Common Ground产品的多样性是其众多优势之一。“快照”、“简介”和重要的介绍使读者能够参与那些可能无法或不可行出版的作品。然而，有时很难确定是什么将“快照”与“简介”区分开来，或者[End Page 147]这两者与关键介绍的区别是什么；某些部分还包括违反这些既定类别的作品。由此产生的结构可能令人振奋，但也令人困惑。此外，该卷将受益于强大的文字编辑，以减少印刷错误和其他较小的勘误。

选集的标题，寻求共同点，表达了编辑们反思 2017 年 Encuentro 中心目标的愿望：通过探索共同的价值观、实践和关注点，将拉丁裔和拉丁美洲戏剧艺术家联系起来。共同点的主题贯穿于为选集撰写的许多原创作品中，但作为一个问题而不是论文。最终，编辑们发现，这个节日揭示了参与者之间的差异和共同点一样多；事实证明，这是节日价值而非失败的象征。在录制节日的作品时，Boffone、Marrero 和 Rodriguez 继续执行记录拉丁裔和拉丁美洲戏剧的重要且很少尝试的任务。该系列对此类作品的书面档案以及任何希望展示更多此类作品的人来说都是一项重要贡献。