Chicano Drama: Performance, Society And Myth

Description:
This is the first book since Jorge Huerta's earlier study Chicano Theater: Themes and Forms to explore the diversity and energy of Chicano theatre. Huerta takes as his starting point 1979, the year Luis Valdez's play, Zoot Suit, was produced on Broadway. Huerta looks at plays by and about Chicana and Chicanos, as they explore, through performance, the community and its identity caught between the United States and Mexico. Through informative biographies of each playwright and analyses of their plays, Huerta offers an accessible introduction to this important aspect of American theatre and culture. Overall, Huerta establishes a pattern of theatrical activity that is closely linked with both Western European traditions of realism and an indigenous philosophy seen in contemporary Chicano culture. The book contains photographs from key productions and will be invaluable to students, scholars and general theatregoers.

Review:
'This reviewer applauds both Huerta, for bringing to the foreground new plays and playwrights [sic] who have attained success in mainstream theater production and for making these works accessible to a wide readership, and series editor Don Wilmeth (Brown), for adding this important volume to the significant and original scholarship of the cultural and social context of theater.' Choice

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; Introduction; 1. Mythos or mitos: the roots of a Chicano mythology; 2. Mystery or miracle: bodiless heads and conversations with the dead; 3. Redemption: looking for miracles in a Man's church; 4. Rebelling against damnation: out of the closet, slowly; Afterword; Bibliography; Index.