The Methuen Drama Book of Contemporary Uruguayan Plays, ed. Sophie Stevens and William Gregory. Trans. Stephen Brown, William Gregory, Catherine Boyle, Rachel Toogood, Kate Eaton, and Sophie Stevens. Methuen Drama Play Collections, London: Methuen Drama, 2025.

Reviewed by Sarah M. Misemer, Texas A&M University

This latest translation project by Sophie Stevens and William Gregory features six outstanding plays from a collection of seasoned and emerging playwrights working in Uruguay’s capital as well as its provinces. The curated collection of works in translation includes Ana versus Death (Gabriel Calderón, trans. Stephen Brown), They All Sleep at Siesta Time (Leonor Courtoisie, trans. William Gregory), Basic Principles for the Construction of Bridges (Jimena Márquez, trans. Catherine Boyle), Prelude to Anne (Sandra Massera, trans. Rachel Toogood), I Will Give You Verses, Not Children (Marianella Morena, trans. Kate Eaton), and Emotional Terror (Josefina Trías, trans. Sophie Stevens).The editors and translators are all associated with the  UK-based Out of the Wings collective that researches, translates, and stages Ibero-American theater for English-speaking audiences. Uruguayan theater has often gotten short shrift when compared to the attention its neighbor Argentina receives, but as many of us know, and as the contributors to this volume clearly make evident, that is a very unfortunate oversight. In fact, Stevens specifically traces important historical roots for River Plate theater’s origins to figures situated in Uruguay such as the celebrated River Plate playwright Florencio Sánchez (1875-1910), who wrote about Uruguay and issues that resonated with local Uruguayan audiences, as well as famous Spanish exile, actress Margarita Xirgu, who established Uruguay’s drama school, now known as the Escuela Multidisciplinaria de Arte Dramático Margarita Xirgu (EMAD). As Stevens points out with these examples and others, there is a deep-seated tradition of high quality dramaturgy that sustains current generations. Stevens also points to a growing interest in Uruguayan theater evidenced in productions like Daniel Goldman’s translations and direction of Sergio Blanco’s work that has been staged primarily at the Arcola theater in London over a number of years (2016-2024). I would also add that Goldman’s recent translation and blockbuster staging of Blanco’s Tebas Land/Thebes Land in London in 2022 was especially important in piquing world-wide interest in Uruguayan theater with international attention. 

This anthology is meant to be accessible for even novice theater lovers, but it also appeals to practitioners and academics. The collection begins with a foreward by Adam Versényi, an introduction by Stevens, as well as a “further reading” section that lists historical, cultural, and theater-specific texts on Uruguay. Versényi’s foreward highlights universal themes that connect the plays (death, cultural memory, intimate stories/communal experiences), the use of iconic figures such as Delmira Agustini, Mario Benedetti, and Anne Frank, as well as brief overviews of the plays and techniques for staging. Stevens’ introduction is organized around the following questions: Why this Anthology?, What is Uruguayan Theatre?, What Were the Criteria for Selecting these Plays?, and it ends with a summary of each play titled “The Plays”.  The translated plays follow; each play is introduced by a short description of when/where the play has been staged along with information about the cast and director, as well as publication information and awards, followed by an “About the author and translator” section that includes professional biographies for each. The details included for each play are an invaluable resource for experts and non-experts alike. For some of the plays, there is a Brief Glossary section after the play that includes explanations about music and song titles, places, and other culturally-specific references that those unfamiliar with the region and culture might not understand (They All Sleep at Siesta Time) or a list of texts that were cited in the play (Basic Principles for the Construction of Bridges). The historical overview in the section of the introduction titled “What is Uruguayan Theater?” gives only the briefest timeline of key moments in theatrical development including mention of the independent theater tradition as well as the government-sponsored Comedia Nacional and important cultural moments such as the civic-military dictatorship 1973-1985 and the economic crisis of 2002, and I would have liked to have seen this section expanded a bit more despite the further reading that is encouraged. It is, nonetheless, a helpful starting point for non-experts. The section devoted to explaining the criteria used for selecting the plays makes connections among the playwrights and their subject matter in compelling ways, and here Stevens provides important context for the real-life iconic figures featured in some of the plays (Agustini, Benedetti, and Frank) and their historico-cultural milieux, she highlights innovative forms of staging, and she explains the intricacies of translation and the processes that were used.

The plays that were chosen are excellent and could easily be used for a unit on Uruguayan theater for an undergraduate or graduate class. They are also entertaining reading for theater aficionados. For those working in applied theater, the plays can all be easily staged with compact casts and modest economic investment. Calderón’s Ana Versus Death revolves around a mother’s desperation to save her son who is dying from cancer and it exploits the limits that she will go to help her son when she no longer has monetary resources. The play forces audiences to confront issues such as justice, forgiveness, righteous anger, and collective/individual responsibility. Courtoisie’s They All Sleep at Siesta Time is a complex examination of inhumanity, inequality, and questions of status, sex, and gender that limit and determine the choices three village girls can make. These parameters lead them to rebel against those limitations. The play’s simple language, juxtapositions, and absurdist elements belie a profound look at rural life and the search for beauty and freedom. Basic Principles for the Construction of Bridges explores generational gaps that come to a head as actors prepare to honor Uruguayan writer and member of the famed Generation of ‘45, Mario Benedetti, on the centennial anniversary of his birth. They grapple with nostalgia for a Montevideo that did not belong to them, and their own stories and unresolved issues intersect with the effort to inventory and portray another’s life on stage. Prelude to Anne is a metatextual play about theater and playwriting with the dead Anne Frank returning to give advice to the playwright Elena about how she should be depicted in the play. The work examines death and the afterlife, historical parallels between crimes committed in Nazi Germany and in the civic-military dictatorship in Uruguay, and the complexities involved in staging the life of a real figure and the grappling with the legacy of re-presenting and embodying H/history on the stage. In I Will Give You Verses, Not Children is based on the centennial death of Uruguay’s celebrated poet Delmira Agustini’s death at the hands of her ex-husband. The work explores the societal constraints that Agustini faced in her time as well as those that haunt the reconstruction of her story as a commemorative act, and the violence surrounding both. The last work included in the collection Emotional Terror is an intimate look into a young woman’s emotional life after a break up with her partner, her relationship with her own body and mind, and how she tries to move on over the course of a year as she writes a monologue about her experience titled Emotional Terror. These plays capture the variety and breadth of talented dramatists working in contemporary Uruguayan theater today.

Sarah M. Misemer is a professor and serves as head of the department of Global Languages and Cultures in the College of Arts & Sciences at Texas A&M University (TAMU). She most recently served as senior associate dean for faculty affairs in the College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts (TAMU). She is the author of three monographs [Secular Saints: Performing Frida Kahlo, Carlos Gardel, Eva Perón, and Selena, (Tamesis, 2008), Moving Forward, Looking Back: Trains, Literature, and the Arts in the River Plate (Bucknell UP, 2010), Theatrical Topographies: Spatial Crises in Uruguayan Theater Post-2001 (Bucknell UP, 2017)] and co-editor of The Trial That Never Ends: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem in Retrospect (Toronto UP, 2017). Professor Misemer has published numerous articles on contemporary River Plate, Mexican, Spanish, and Latino theater and performance, and she recently served as an invited guest editor for South Central Review and authored a chapter on Uruguay’s iconic Teatro Galpón for Fifty Key Latin American and Latinx Artists volume co-edited by Paola S. Hernández and Analola Santana (Routledge 2022). She is the editor for the Latin American Theatre Review Book Series, as well as a contributing editor as a Southern Cone expert for the Handbook of Latin American Studies, Hispanic Division, which is published every other year by the Library of Congress. Professor Misemer is also a member of editorial and advisory boards for peer-reviewed journals such as Latin American Theatre Review (University of Kansas Press) and South Central Review (Johns Hopkins University Press).