Eduardo Gutirrez produced a wildly popular stage version of Juan Moreira with the famous dramaturge Juan Podest, which was first performed in 1886. We can remember that the original folletn came out in La Patria from 1879-1880 – the very years that the province of Buenos Aires was engaged in a fierce armed resistance against their takeover by the national government. The province, as we know, lost; so also, we know did Juan Moreira eventually become enshrined as a national icon of mass culture. Did the stage version that Gutirrez wrote later in the decade after the province lost its sovereignty have a role in making the provincial militiaman Juan Moreira a figure of unity and nationalism?
For this assignment, you will be able to dig into these questions by comparing a few parts of the serial novel and stage versions.