Bridging the Gaps in Cultural Memory: Carlos Gorostiza's El puente and Gabriel Peveroni's Sarajevo esquina Montevideo (El puente)

Abstract

Though more than 50 years separate Carlos Gorostiza’s and Gabriel Pevoroni’s most well-known plays, El puente, and Sarajevo esquina Montevideo (El puente), they share many of the same preoccupations with the politics of performance, most specifically the focus on social life and human behavior as embodied actions. Because the bridges are never seen in either of the plays, the absent but present quality of these markers also reminds the actors and public alike of the metatheatrical and performative nature of history and behavior within the sphere of cultural memory. Political reforms enacted in real life in Argentina will be examined as repeated behaviors, situations, and linguistic performances within Gorostiza’s play. In contrast, in Peveroni’s play one observes how and why collective memory is transmitted through ephemeral, embodied practices. (SMM)