Highland Maya Theater

This book introduces the reader to two Maya theater groups who reside and work in the highland town of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Hepp's ethnographic analysis investigates how indigenous theater, in the context of these two groups, addresses contemporary social issues, reinterprets history, and is used to invent new cultural traditions. One theater group analyzed by Hepp performs works regarding social problems that affect women in highland Maya communities. The other Maya theater group addressed in this book uses the stage as a platform for the preservation of Maya cultural traditions. This group dramatizes oral and written Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Quiché Maya myths and folktales in order to (re)create history. Through the use of theater, both groups espouse their particular agendas while coinciding on the common goal of creating new cultural traditions. The promotion of change encourages and maintains an atmosphere of social activism where, Hepp concludes, both audience members and actors are involved in crafting a new tradition of what it means to be Maya in the twenty-first century.