“The second, while sufficiently crude and violent, has elements of great beauty. The third, The witches’ mountain, is a really magnificent piece, both in conception and construction.”
+ Freeman 1:214 My 12 ’20 400w
“When we come to the actual texture of the ‘dramas criollos’ the impression is one of slight disappointment. The figure of the wandering ‘gaucho’ and minstrel is romantic rather than naive. Speech and verse, at least in their translated forms, present a curious mixture of the sentimental and the artificial. In The witches’ mountain there is high and concentrated dramatic passion. But this play is obviously the least primitive of the three.”
+ − Nation 110:693 My 22 ’20 260w
“These plays have a freshness and vigor of spaces our Wild West scenarios somehow lack. There are the same conventional gestures, the same corroborated sentiment from which any informing fire has gone out. But at least these are reminiscent of authentic instead of manufactured emotion.” Lola Ridge
+ − New Repub 25:236 Ja 19 ’21 660w + − Review 2:605 Je 5 ’20 240w
“However primitive the plays, they possess what our American drama strives in vain to discover, the soul of their native land.... The witches’ mountain is doubtless the most actable, and the most easily understood by an American audience.” D. Grafly
+ Springf’d Republican p13a Ap 25 ’20 600w
“If these plays seem immature rather than naive; crude, rather than in the spirit of the folk; if Mr Bierstadt seems to have mistaken the drama inherent in the life and character of the ‘gaucho’ for drama in the plays that represent him, there is still nothing but gratitude due him for introducing the ‘gaucho’ to our unromantic world.”
+ − Theatre Arts Magazine 4:256 Jl ’20 380w