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Across a five-hundred-year sweep of history, Willis Knapp Jones
surveys the native drama and the Spanish influence upon it in
nineteen South American countries, and traces the development of
their national theatres to the 1960s. This volume, filled with a
fascinating array of information, sparkles with wit while giving
the reader a fact-filled course in the history of Spanish American
drama that he can get nowhere else. This is the first book in
English ever to consider the theatre of all the Spanish American
countries. Even in Spanish, the pioneer study that covers the whole
field was also written by Jones. Jones sees the history of a nation
in the history of its drama. Pre-Columbian Indians, conquistadores,
missionary priests, viceroys, dictators, and national heroes form a
background of true drama for the main characters here-those who
wrote and produced and acted in the make-believe drama of the
times. The theatre mirrors the whole life of the community, Jones
believes, and thus he offers information about geography, military
events, and economics, and follows the politics of state and church
through dramatists' offerings. Examining the plays of a people down
the centuries, he shows how the many cultural elements of both Old
and New Worlds have been blended into the distinct national
characteristics of each of the Spanish American countries. He does
full justice to the subject he loves. A lively storyteller, he adds
tidbits of spice and laughter, long-buried vignettes of history,
tales of politics and drama, stories of high and low life, plots of
plays, bits of verse, accounts of dalliance and of hard work, and
sad and happy endings of rulers and peons, dramatists, actors, and
clowns. A valuable appendix is a selected reading guide, listing
the outstanding works of important Spanish American dramatists. A
generous bibliography is a useful addition for scholars.
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