The Peasant Drama Plays by Víctor Zavala Cataño: Construction of the Peasant, agency, Knowledge and Political Action

Fonseca T.J.C. · Cuadernos de Musica, Artes Visuales y Artes Escenicas (2023) · DOI: 10.11144/javeriana.mavae18-1.tcvz

Resumen

This article explores the construction of the peasant in the play El Cargador by Victor Zavala Cataño, which is part of his book Teatro Campesino [Peasant Drama Plays]. Elaborating from the so-known idea that the peasant drama brings the peasant into the spotlight for the first time in the history of the Peruvian playwriting, I examine how such representation is constructed. To do so, I explore previous studies, in-depth interviews to performing artists and analyses of plays. Next, I contend herein that the peasant representation in the described context is still intended to construct him/her as a victim without agency. More specifically, he/she is shown as a person who does not know his/her condition and is not able to articulate one's actions while living in the ill-being in order to produce a change. It contributes to a subordinating and paternalistic matrix that keeps the peasant in the position of an "other". In the same vein, the peasant drama plays ignore the performing expressions present in the Andean festivities and show them as alien and useless to the peasants and mountain porters, despite such expressions can be understood as the space par excellence of the performing spirit in the Peruvian Andes. This work also explores the relationship between peasant and university as proposed in the play El cargador [The Mountain Porter] in which the latter is shown as the owner of the political knowledge necessary for the peasant political action. As an exploratory effort, this work starts to unveil the idea that the peasant drama play is an urban and college phenomenon.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú