ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a speculative survey of a field that does not (yet) exist. Despite the perennial debates surrounding Latin American modernism and increasing interest in the region's theatrical traditions, the phrase ‘modernist theatre in Latin America’ is apt to puzzle specialists in all relevant areas of study. Part of the problem concerns the ambiguous contours of Latin America: does it include the Caribbean and countries where the official language is English, French, or Dutch? Theatre is also notoriously difficult to define, and then there are the multiple slippages and asynchronicities in the meaning of modernism across linguistic boundaries as well as discrepancies among the disciplines with which theatre and performance overlap. Recent criticism has thrown another wrench in the works with the notion of ‘comparative’ or ‘global modernisms’; yet even when viewed through this wider lens, the object of inquiry remains obscure. Few writers in Latin America who are classified as modernist penned plays, even fewer saw their works staged, and despite some notable exceptions, the scattered attempts to create a ‘modernist’ (or ‘avant-garde’) theatre generally failed to get off the ground.
