Teatro, historia reciente y censura: "El tipo que vino a la función" (2014) de Raquel Diana

Abstract

This study of Raquel Diana’s "El tipo que vino a la función" (Florencio Sánchez Prize 2015) is part of a larger project, which directs and frames our inquiry, wherein we investigate the way in which contemporary Uruguayan theater “looks back” in order to (re)imagine and tell the story of the Recent Past —that is, the military dictatorship (1973-1985), its antebellum and its aftermath. Yet, this, and other similar studies intend as well to question a number of established notions about the dictatorship (such as “the cultural shutdown”, the theory of “the two evils”), to illuminate other matters and questions (“other territories” of memory) that have not been explored and registered by theater and other discourses, and lastly, to identify a number of new themes and ways of re/presenting, dealing, and positioning (a new poetics) devised by contemporary playwrights to relate to the past, something that seems to be a sign of the times.