ABSTRACT
Central and South America encompass not only a vast geographical area, but also one of great cultural diversity. This is an important point to bear in mind in the organization of this chapter, for its broad scope necessarily requires a selection of material. The emphasis of the discussion will be on Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, where some of the most noteworthy productions of Shakespeare have occurred. The chapter will focus mainly on Brazil, however, in order to provide a more detailed examination of the variety of approaches to the appropriation politics and performance practices of Shakespearean drama in a single Latin American nation. But no discussion of Shakespeare in the Americas can leave out the Caribbean, a region where The Tempest has had a strong – and post-colonial – resonance with the work of various writers, culminating with the appropriation of Caliban as a symbol of Latin American identity.
