Performing Everyday Life in Argentine Popular Theater, 1890–1934

Description

This book examines the prolific and widely-attended popular theater boom of the género chico criollo in the context of Argentina’s modernization. Victoria Lynn Garrett examines how selected plays mediated the impact of economic liberalism, technological changes, new competing and contradictory gender roles, intense labor union activity, and the foreign/nativist dichotomy. Popular theaters served as spaces for cultural agency by portraying conventional and innovative performances of daily life. This dramatic corpus was a critical mass cultural medium that allowed audiences to evaluate the dominant fictions of liberal modernity, to critique Argentina’s purportedly democratic culture, and to imagine alternative performances of everyday life in accordance with their realities. Through a fresh look at the relationship among politics, economics, popular culture, and performance in Argentina’s modernization period, the book uncovers largely overlooked articulations of popular-class identities and desires for greater inclusion that would drive social and political struggles to this day. Front Matter ....Pages i-x Performing Everyday Life (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 1-33 Performing Inclusion and Disillusion (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 35-64 Embodying Modernity (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 65-95 Modern Families and Degeneration (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 97-128 Sex, Desire, and Violence (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 129-157 Criollos, Caudillos, and the Violent State (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 159-187 Performing Protest (Victoria Lynn Garrett)....Pages 189-218 Back Matter ....Pages 219-226