Publication date:
27 May 2015Length of book:
310 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739168660
Theatre of the Borderlands: Conflict, Violence, and Healing is an enlightening and encompassing study that focuses on how dramatists from the Northern Mexico border territories write about theater. The plays analyzed in this study are representative of the most important Northern Border playwrights whose plays’ themes present the US-Mexico Borderlands in a socio-historical and political context. The most important themes observed include topics that engage in discussions of: the indigenous, Border crossings, heroes and folk saints, the city of Tijuana, and violence in the Borderlands, to name a few.
These themes have led to the birth of the Teatro del Norte movement, a group of determined playwrights insistent on presenting dramaturgical themes that show the bond between their particular geographies, histories, socio-political and economic situations, thereby giving birth to an original voice and new aesthetic of representation.
Dealing with the topics already mentioned, and pairing them with more timely ones like immigration reform, namely, this study can serve as an invaluable resource to many interdisciplinary academic settings, and can grant an eye-opening insight to Border relations through several critical readings.
These themes have led to the birth of the Teatro del Norte movement, a group of determined playwrights insistent on presenting dramaturgical themes that show the bond between their particular geographies, histories, socio-political and economic situations, thereby giving birth to an original voice and new aesthetic of representation.
Dealing with the topics already mentioned, and pairing them with more timely ones like immigration reform, namely, this study can serve as an invaluable resource to many interdisciplinary academic settings, and can grant an eye-opening insight to Border relations through several critical readings.
This is a book about theater in the context of space, specifically the borderland between Mexico and the US, a contended space once considered by the Spanish empire too remote to control. Now the US and Mexican cultures have converged to become 'Amexica,' a conflicted land with profound scars. In each of this book's five chapters Moreno explores a topic attached to a specific population: indigenous groups identified with tribes that inhabited the area before the Spanish arrived; the border crossers with their religious syncretism, trusting saints, and other holy figures to protect them across the desert; the narcos and their violence; women trapped in the world of the maquiladoras or killed by members of sadistic cults in Ciudad Juárez; and, finally, the world of Tijuana, an evolving 'transfrontier' metropolis. The plays discussed showcase the encounter of these unique subcultures, climatic moments providing a background against which frontier people define their daily struggle to survive. Detailed description of the plays and ancillary sociological and historical information are included, bringing the reader into the plays' thematic complexity. A bibliography points to additional interesting sources. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.