Cristina Peréz Díaz. Antígona: by José Watanabe – A Bilingual Edition with Critical Essays. London and New York: Routledge, 2023. 157pp.
Reviewed by Katherine Nigh
While taking notes for this review, auto-correct attempted to replace Antígona with Antigone on multiple occasions. This faux-pas on the part of my phone poetically illustrates many of the arguments of Cristina Peréz Díaz’s book, Antígona by José Watanabe: A Bilingual Edition with Critical Essays published this year (2023) by Routledge as part of their Classics and the Postcolonial Series. The book, which includes a first-ever translation of Watanabe’s text into English, in addition to two critical essays (all by Peréz Díaz), sets out to frame Watanabe’s text both in and outside its relationship to the “original” – both the “original” Greek text by Sophocles and the “original” performance of Watanabe’s text by Teresa Ralli (actress and member of Peruvian theater collective, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani). I should mention, upfront that I am quite sure it is because of my relationship with Yuyachkani[1] that I was asked to write this review- however my background as a theater practitioner and scholar makes me in some ways an ideal reviewer of this book and at the same time leaves me unable to speak to its merit from a Classics standpoint and also causes me some discomfort in terms of the book’s focus on moving away from performance studies.
As Díaz describes, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani (a Peruvian theater collective that has been working with almost all of its original members since 1971) began working on an adaptation of Sophocles’s Antigone in 1998 in response to the ongoing Internal Conflict that had caused political and personal devastation for nearly 20 years and, according to the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, resulted in the death of nearly 70,000 Peruvians. After some time, the group reached out to Peruvian poet, José Watanabe, to collaborate on a new interpretation and translation of the play which was first performed in Lima, Peru in 2000. Díaz, a poet, translator and scholar as well as PhD Candidate in Classics at Columbia University, first encountered the play when she attended a workshop led by Yuyachkani for international artists and scholars in 2014. The book responds to what Díaz identified as a need for an English translation of Watanabe’s Antígona; to introduce this version of Antigone to classicists; and to write about the play/poem from the perspective of a classicist as opposed to a theater or performance studies scholar, such as myself, who Díaz feels have “dominated” the discourse on this adaptation of Antigone.
In Díaz’s Introduction to the book, they provide a brief history of Yuyachkani as well as the Internal Conflict. In her Introduction, Díaz also covers the overall methodology of the group, providing a brief theoretical framework for understanding the group’s placement within a history of Latin American theater groups as well as their relationship to more European theater aesthetics. She goes on to describe the collaborative process between Teresa Ralli and the group’s director Miguel Rubio with Watanabe, destabilizing the idea of “authorship” not only in regards to this text, but also in general (although, as I mention later, the co-authorship that Díaz establishes, as I see it, becomes minimized later in the book). Díaz also utilizes the Introduction to compare other productions of Antigone in Peru, including Antígona (A poem in prose) by Jorge Eduardo Eielson and Antígona by playwright Sarina Helfgott.
The second part of the book is a translation of the text from Peruvian Spanish into English. The translation does not include any stage directions or descriptions of Ralli’s physical actions during the performance which, for theater scholars and practitioners, is a deficit. The translation itself is excellent, [although at times it perhaps misses its own poetic license which would perhaps be more informed if Díaz was steeped in the subtleties of the context of Peru.]
In Part Three, “Angles of Memory in Antígona: An aesthetic reading”, Díaz argues it is important to consider Watanabe’s text “outside” of its geopolitical context and outside of its relationship to Ralli’s performance of the text. They note, “My interest here is on textual aspects that have been disregarded in the scholarship, and because of that I will forego performance elements” (103). She argues that “the fact that the text lacks direct historical references to Peru becomes salient” and that it reflects Watanabe’s poetic style which she describes in her Introduction as apolitical and “concerned with beauty and aesthetics” (17). To “justify” her decision to engage with the text outside of the historical context of Peru’s Internal Conflict, Díaz points to the lack of specific references to Peru in Watanabe’s text, as well as Watanabe’s own comments (in interviews – not with Díaz) wherein he does not champion poetry’s abilities to create social change. However, I would argue, that understanding the text within the context of its original performance can also provide an explanation for the lack of specific geopolitical references in Watanabe’s text. The audience of Yuyachkani’s performances in Lima would not need to know that the play is referencing Peru or the Internal Conflict because that reference is more than obvious to an audience who have gone through the traumatic events of that time – and, from a dramaturgical perspective, it is perhaps more powerful to not explicitly mention Peru, to not set the play in the 1980’s, etc.. The lack of direct reference to Peru and political figures who played part in the Internal Conflict perhaps also allows both Watanabe and Ralli/Yuyachkani to say more than they could otherwise, given that the climate in Peru was still incredibly fraught at the time of it is premiere and that members of Yuyachkani had been threatened on multiple occasions for their politically outspoken performances in the past. It is also impossible to know, without directly asking him, if Watanabe partnered with Yuyachkani because he did want his work to serve a political purpose. Either way, the fact that Watanabe does not identify as a political poet does not mean that this piece, as a whole, should be viewed outside of historical and political context.
In Part Three of the book, Díaz also highlights the ways in which Antígona both “remembers and forgets” Sophocles’ Antigone, providing a close reading of specific examples when Watanabe/Yuyachkani’s text diverts from Sophocles’ version which she argues changes the “distribution of sympathy”. She focuses particularly on the role of the narrator (who is revealed as Antígona’s sister, Ismene) and places this difference within a framework of theoretical responses to Antigone’s including Judith Butler and Tina Chanter. Díaz also points to the use of monologue versus dialogue as a unique and significant aspect of Watanabe/Yuyachkani’s version of the myth of Antigone. Here again a geo-political context is quite important. The role of Ismene as witness in this adaptation is, as noted by Ralli and scholars including Francine A’Ness and myself, a thinly veiled metaphor for the role of witness in Peru both during and after the violence. The use of monologue versus dialogue is also difficult to remove from the partnership of Watanabe and Ralli/Yuyachkani as they set out to create a one-woman show not only as a vehicle for Ralli as an actor, but also to mirror the experience of many in Peru who felt they had to take on the burden of memory, the burden of seeking justice and truth, at an individual and often lonely level.
Díaz asserts that many of the differences between Watanabe/Yuyachkani’s Antígona and Sophocles’ Antigone, were Watanabe’s decisions but by her own admittance, there is a complicated sense of authorship of this piece (thus why I write Watanabe/Yuyachkani’s version of Antígona, not just Watanabe’s), however, at this point in the book, Ralli disappears as collaborator/author. If Díaz does have a reason for this certainty, she doesn’t mention it and I am certainly curious what decisions and changes came from Watanabe and what came from Ralli/Rubio. I would also posit that in an artistic collaboration those decisions are made fluidly and sometimes without the ability to discern what ideas came from whom originally.
Overall, this book is an important contribution to the field of Classics; Comparison Literature and other fields and challenges scholars in these fields to consider this Peruvian adaptation of Sophocles’ text in the larger canon of Antigoneadaptations. The translation of the text itself into English will be useful for scholars and practitioners (theater and otherwise) who do not speak Spanish and would like to engage with the text. However, I would have liked to see Díaz make the points she feels have been missing from the scholarship on Watanabe/Yuaychkani’s Antígona while still guiding the reader more than she does to the very important embodied elements and geopolitical context of its original performance. As someone who has spent nearly twenty years researching the Internal Conflict of Peru, and the ongoing attempts of activists including Yuyachkani to keep the memory of these events alive, and given the current return to violence in Peru and attempts from the political Right to silence narratives of remembrance about the Internal Conflict (see news on the recent closure of the Lugar de Memoria – Space of Memory – by the conservative Mayor of Lima), it makes me uncomfortable to see that part of the history of Peru diminished to the degree it is in Díaz’s book.
Dr. Katherine Nigh (She/Her) is proud to serve as Chair of the Theater Arts and Dance Departments at Pasadena City College. She received her PhD in Theater and Performance of the Americas program at Arizona State University and an MA in Performance Studies at New York University. Her artistic and research practice focus on theater as a tool for social change/justice. She brings an international perspective of theater making and has collaborated and trained with groups including El Teatro Campesino; Cornerstone Theater and Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani of Peru. At PCC she has directed over ten productions and has had the honor of partnering with CORE (Community Overcoming Recidivism through Education), producing performances highlighting the experience of formerly incarcerated students and she plans to explore further collaborations with the diverse student body at PCC.
[1] I have worked with, including managing the archive of the group for the Hemispheric Institute’s Digital Video Library, and written extensively about the group since 2004.
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