Reviewed by:

• Aquí and Allá: Transnational Dominican Theater and Performance by Camilla Stevens
• Bretton White

In this engaging study of contemporary Dominican drama and performance, Stevens makes a compelling argument for how theater can illuminate transnational subjects. By focusing on multiple aspects of Dominican migration and the diaspora, Aquí and Allá shows the complex nature of migration and transnational identity through the lens of theater written, published, and performed both in the Dominican Republic and the United States. As Stevens argues, since the 90s, these theatrical representations of Dominican subjects have become a way to counteract negative stereotypes of Dominican migrants for audiences in both countries, while they also [End Page 253] complicate how these transnational subjects see race, class, gender, and sexuality as they cope with the many aspects of transnational migration, from the initial departure to return migration. For audience members, Stevens is concerned with how theater provides local spaces for reimaging and expanding interpretations of Dominican identity.

With close readings of approximately 15 plays and/or performances from the 1990s until 2015, Aquí and Allá deftly addresses how Dominican transnationals are viewed as minority figures whether in the United States or in the Dominican Republic. Since most have migrated due to the dire economic situation, Dominicans historically maintain strong cultural ties to the Dominican Republic, even when born abroad. Upon their return to the home country, many transnational Dominicans find that they are treated as outsiders due to linguistic, economic, and cultural differences. Indeed, as Stevens shows, the significance of the words aquí and allá shifts for the characters in these plays, depending on one’s location and perspective. Sometimes these transnational shifts become muddled for the characters themselves, giving a sense of both the separation and the connection of both national spaces for the transnational subject. The riskiness of this transnational mobility is especially evident in a chapter on deadly yola migration performances. It is also extremely complicated, as we see in chapters on works that upend traditional Caribbean masculinities, prompt ethical audience engagement through the treatment of sex trafficking and immigrant rights, and show characters’ arduous citizenship journeys. Stevens’s careful readings and engaging writing illuminate the texts and stagings of these understudied works, resulting in an important corpus of theater that treats contemporary, transnational Dominican experience.

One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that these performances function as what Juan Flores calls “cultural remittances” (131). Given that many Dominican stories of migration are rooted in economic need and that remittances are essential to Dominican citizens’ survival, this parallel form of remittance, according to the author, is attractive because of its ability to create more expansive definitions of national identity. Likewise, Stevens’s exploration of Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih’s “minor transnationalism” dismantles the binaries evident in postcolonial theory and gives space to translocal works that are always a part of minoritarian discourse. Stevens’s analysis of the works featured in Aquí and Allá shows how transnational identity is integral to the Dominican experience. Additionally, she identifies how the artistic production of theater practitioners working in the minor transnational realm can awaken audience members to new subtleties within the Dominican experience, both aquí and allá, and the spaces in between. [End Page 254]

审核人：

• 阿奎和阿拉：卡米拉·史蒂文斯的跨国多米尼加剧院和表演
• 布雷顿怀特

在这项对当代多米尼加戏剧和表演的引人入胜的研究中，史蒂文斯就戏剧如何照亮跨国主题提出了令人信服的论点。通过关注多米尼加移民和侨民的多个方面，阿奎和阿拉通过在多米尼加共和国和美国编写、出版和演出的戏剧镜头展示了移民和跨国身份的复杂性。正如史蒂文斯所说，自 90 年代以来，这些多米尼加主题的戏剧表演已成为抵消两国观众对多米尼加移民的负面刻板印象的一种方式，同时它们也[End Page 253]使这些跨国主体在处理跨国移民的许多方面（从最初的离开到返回移民）时如何看待种族、阶级、性别和性行为变得复杂。对于观众来说，史蒂文斯关心戏剧如何为重新塑造和扩展多米尼加身份的诠释提供当地空间。

通过仔细阅读从 1990 年代到 2015 年的大约 15 部戏剧和/或表演，阿奎和阿拉巧妙地阐述了多米尼加跨国公司如何被视为少数人，无论是在美国还是在多米尼加共和国。由于大多数人因经济形势严峻而移民，因此多米尼加人历来与多米尼加共和国保持着牢固的文化联系，即使他们出生在国外。许多跨国多米尼加人返回祖国后发现，由于语言、经济和文化差异，他们被视为外人。事实上，正如史蒂文斯所表明的，aquí和allá这两个词的意义这些戏剧中的角色会随着一个人的位置和视角而变化。有时，这些跨国转移对人物本身来说变得混乱，给跨国主体一种两种国家空间的分离和联系的感觉。这种跨国流动的风险在关于致命约拉的一章中尤为明显迁移性能。它也极其复杂，正如我们在颠覆传统加勒比男子气概的作品的章节中看到的那样，通过对性交易和移民权利的处理促进道德观众参与，并展示角色艰难的公民之旅。史蒂文斯的仔细阅读和引人入胜的写作阐明了这些未经研究的作品的文本和舞台，从而形成了一个重要的戏剧语料库，可以处理当代的跨国多米尼加体验。

这本书最有趣的理论之一是，这些表演就像胡安·弗洛雷斯 (Juan Flores) 所说的“文化汇款”(131)。鉴于多米尼加的许多移民故事都植根于经济需求，而且汇款对多米尼加公民的生存至关重要，作者认为，这种平行的汇款形式很有吸引力，因为它能够为国家认同创造更广泛的定义。同样，史蒂文斯对弗朗索瓦·莱昂内特和施舒梅的“小跨国主义”的探索打破了后殖民理论中明显的二元论，并为始终属于少数派话语的跨地域作品提供了空间。史蒂文斯对Aquí 和 Allá作品的分析展示了跨国身份如何成为多米尼加体验不可或缺的一部分。此外，她还确定了在次要跨国领域工作的戏剧从业者的艺术创作如何唤醒观众了解多米尼加体验中的新微妙之处，包括aquí和allá以及两者之间的空间。[第254页结束]