Latin American Theatre Review

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.