Professor Solórzano, a forty-five-year-old guatemalteco, most of whose work has been done in Mexico, is not only a practicing dramatist but a writer on the Latin American theater, with a two-volume anthology of its plays and two critical volumes of almost the same name. The earlier one was published in Buenos Aires in 1961. Now comes the present book which augments but does not replace the earlier study, since it classifies the dramatists in a different way.
The five chapters consider the theater of customs, the first decade of the twentieth century, plays of universal tendencies, plays of national themes, and the postwar theater. A nine-page introduction prepares the scene with a brief glance at the history and geography of the hemisphere and its early drama. The rest of the volume considers every nation separately within each chapter. The principal dramatists are discussed in detail with analyses of their major works and interesting sidelights on their personalities, since the author is personally acquainted with a number of them. Central America receives more extensive treatment than in previous volumes, and Mexico’s theater is covered in detail.
The author finds the theater rich and varied, developing rapidly though handicapped by national rivalries. One phase of his study is an observation of the various ways in which the theater has departed from Old World norms, despite the interest of the intellectuals in the European drama, especially that of France. He explains this divergence through the differing amounts of racial fusion. He has chosen 1900 as the date for the beginning of his study, because he regards it as the beginning of the continent’s financial and political stability.
Solórzano includes a final section listing theaters, actors, and directors, and a two-page bibliography. Unfortunately, there is no index to help find the writers discussed, not even such a listing under each chapter as in the earlier book. In a work that includes so many names, a carping critic can always find misprints, like the spelling of Eichelbaum on pages 61 and 63, Vodanovich on 148, and Bunster on 107. Also some may question Solórzano’s interpretation of La tuna en el pantano (p. 82). Nevertheless, this is a valuable contribution to the increasing number of books on the subject, and students of the Spanish American theater will find in its pages many suggestions for investigations of their own.
