Freedom and revolution in theatre in Puerto Rico: Constructions of nation and identity in dramatic discourse, 1966--1975

The "popular theatre" between 1960-70 in Puerto Rico was an artistic movement that sought to affirm national identity. Artists who participated in this movement viewed artistic endeavors as the practice of resistance to what they considered the political and cultural colonization of their country. I have constructed the story of the most representative exponents of this movement from my research based on primary sources. The groups I study include El Tajo del Alacran, Anamu, Morivivi, Colectivo Nacional de Teatro and Teatro de Guerrillas. I analyze a selection of each group's plays to show the representations of the Puerto Rican nation that they elaborate. This analysis is founded on an extensive bibliography of nationalism, identity, aesthetics, history of theatre, literary theory and criticism.;The intention of artists engaged in "popular theatre" was to produce art in concert with ample popular sectors of the population without abandoning their aesthetic practice or transforming their discourse into propaganda. In this dissertation I present the experience of "popular theatre" as a manifestation of "Puerto Rican theatre" that broke with the representational style of the canonized theatre that had been established by a group of authors known as "The Thirties Generation". I demonstrate that the artists who engaged in "popular theatre" continued their search to define the "authentic" Puerto Rican.;The "popular theatre" artists denounced colonialism, the Vietnam War, the draft, and social problems that were affecting the country. In their search for support in saving the nation from political and cultural colonization, they followed closely the Cuban Revolution and found allies in African American movements that struggled for civil rights, and in student anti-military movements. They were also influenced by American vanguard theatre groups such as The Bread and Puppet Theatre, Teatro Campesino, and the San Francisco Mime Troup, by Latin American radical theatre groups such as Libre Teatro Libre from Argentina and El Teatro Experimental de Cali and by theoreticians such as Erwin Piscator, Bertolt Brecht and Enrique Buenaventura.