IU Grupo de Teatro VIDA presents 7th annual production

IU Grupo de Teatro VIDA cast

Grupo de Teatro VIDA is a Spanish language performance group at Indiana University. It aims to produce plays that foster cultural understanding and promote the richness of Hispanic culture and expression through live theater. The group additionally promotes language learning by creating a venue for students to engage actively with Spanish and to meet native Spanish speakers. Grupo de Teatro VIDA has an annual fall production as well as spring projects.

The 2012 fall performance, Maniobras traviesas ("Mischievous Maneuvers"), consists of four short plays:

• El sueño del pongo ("The servant's dream"), an adaptation of Peruvian José María Argueda's short story by the same name (1965)
• Ternura (1966, "Tenderness") by Salvadorian Álvaro Menén Desleal
• Las pinzas (1962, "The Forceps") by Venezuelan Román Chalbaud
• Los títeres de Cachiporra (1922-25, "The Billy-Club Puppets") by Spaniard Federico García Lorca

The plays are being directed by four IU students, and the actors are also students, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic. Two actors are faculty members from the IU Department of Spanish and Portuguese. They will perform November 1, 2 and 3, 2012, at the BPP Building on 107 West 9th Street in Bloomington, IN, and tentatively November 30 and December 1 in Indianapolis at the IndyFringe Theatre. Admission will be free in order to encourage IU students and Bloomington locals learning Spanish to attend. Productions are open to all, but are primarily advertised to the IU community for the Bloomington production.

The Grupo de Teatro VIDA theatrical productions allow students to have an engaged, personal experience with various Hispanic cultures, both through the plays and the participants. The attendees can also experience the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures in an active setting that extends beyond a textbook.

Israel Fernando Herrera, the faculty advisor for the group, says that one of the four plays audience can enjoy is Titeres de Cachiporra which was written in accordance with the Punch and Judy puppet theater tradition and reflects Federico García Lorca's artistic project to revive popular theater. As part of a Three Kings celebration in 1923, Lorca debuted Titeres along with two other puppet plays in his own home, with the help of his family, and musical accompaniment by Manuel de Falla and Hermeneguildo Lanz. The play is a tragicomedy that recounts the passion between Rosita and Cocoliche, whose love is threatened by the club-brandishing, rich and menacing Cristóbal. To further complicate the plot, a previous lover, the wandering and mysterious Currito, returns to rekindle his old flame. In the end, an unexpected turn of events saves Rosita and Cocoliche's love and reveals to the characters that reality is not what they once perceived. Ironically, their illumination proves to only be in part as they fail to realize that they themselves are puppets.

Through choosing puppets instead of actors, Lorca attenuates the violence portrayed by a patriarchal society that rules by brute force. Nevertheless, due to the difficulty in using puppets to bring to life Lorca's complicated stage notes and plot, most representations of Titeres have been with human actors. Effectively, the actors depict puppets who think they are humans. Despite its accessibility and comic appeal, the play offers a scathing social commentary in addition to deconstructing the audience's expectations of reality through various meta-theatrical games.

Revised: October 30, 2012

Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs
Bryan Hall 115, Bloomington, IN 47405-7000, USA
(812) 856-5700

Comments