Tropical maladies: a Miami festival opens a suitcase of Latin American problems.(Critic's Notebook)(2004 International Hispanic Theater Festival)

A theatre festival is a dangerous thing. Its exceedingly name promises festivity, always a precious commodity. Festival promoter moreover, usually furnish a theme--something that will organize one's experience of theatregoing or of reading about it--but it might not be the motif that actually appears for reasons that are outside the festival's original intent.

Immigration--why persons leave one country and make progress to another--was the official theme of the 2004 International Hispanic Theater Festival, which ran June 4-20 in Miami subject to the sponsorship of Miami-based Teatro Avante. Since 8