GRE Reading Comprehension

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Source: CHP

Innovative as it is, Luis Valdez' acto owes much of the theater traditions or other periods and regions. Like early Spanish American religious dramas, secular folk dramas, and the Mexican carpas of a somewhat later period, actos are usually performed outdoors by traveling groups of players or by local theater groups. The improvised comic satire of the actos is often attributed to Valdez' study of the Italian commedia dell' arte of the sixteenth century, although some critics see it as a direct reflection of the comic and improvisational qualities of the more contemporary and local carpas of Mexican theater. The Italian influence is likely, whatever Valdez‘ immediate source: the Mexican carpas themselves are said to have originated from the theater pieces of a sixteenth-century Spanish writer inspired by encounters with Italian commedia dell'arte troupes on tour in Spain.

Question List: 1 2

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the author's argument concerning the debt of the acto to the theater traditions of other periods and regions?

  • A Many popular forms of theater rely heavily on improvisation.
  • B Plays resembling the acto in structure were written in the 1970's by West African playwrights who are interested in dramatizing the richness of their own cultures.
  • C The use of masks has, at one time or another, been characteristic of the theater traditions of almost all cultures, even those most isolated from outside influences
  • D During a strike, it is common for union members to present musical skits dramatizing the values of solidarity and resistance
  • E Before 1965 Luis Valdez had attended many performances of traditional Mexican theater groups touring the western United States.

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