МЕКСИКО ЛАЖИМА НЕ ВЕРУЈЕ
MEXICO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN LIES

Summary/Abstract: The article looks at artistic representations of Mexico in the works of several western authors (D. H. Lawrence, Malcolm Lowry, Barbara Kingsolver, Antonin Artaud and Sam Shepard), who regard Mexico as a kind of testing ground for their characters and their cultures. The focus of the analyses is on Artaud and Shepard. Artaud found much of the inspiration for his idea of total theatre during his stay in Mexico. The first performance of his Theatre of Cruelty was to be titled “The Conquest of Mexico”, but he died before he had time to realize it. Sam Shepard’s interest in the Mexican indigenous cultures is evident from his early play, La Tourista. The interest grew and can be traced in his subsequent plays which resemble initiation rites and have protagonists whose journeys of self discovery often take them to Mexico. That has been the reason why some critics call Shepard’s technique “the shaman dramaturgy”. This essay traces Shepard’s treatment of Mexico in La Tourista (1967) and Seduced (1978), and claims that its best expression, both in form and content, can be found in the play Eyes for Consuela (1998), which Shepard wrote inspired by the short story of the Mexican Nobel Prize winner, Octavio Paz.

• Details
• Contents