Anthology Explores Role of Women In Spanish-American Theater

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The first anthology in English dedicated exclusively to Spanish-American women playwrights has been produced by two Buffalo professors.

Maria Vargas and Teresa Cajiao Salas are the editors of “Women Writing Women,” an anthology of award-winning Spanish-American woman playwrights of the 1980s that has been praised for the quality and scope of its translations.

Vargas is associate professor of Spanish in the University at Buffalo Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Salas is emeritus professor of Spanish at Buffalo State College.

The book was published by the State University of New York Press in the series “Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture.”

It includes eight plays by authors of national and international acclaim, including Chile’s Isadora Aguirre, Argentina’s Diana Raznovich and Beatriz Seibel, and Puerto Rico’s Teresa Marichal and Myrna Casas. Mexican playwrights Maruxa Vilalta and Sabina Berman, and Venezuela’s Mariela Romero also are included.

These writers speak to such concerns as social injustice, identity, the role of art and the power of writing. They work from a feminist perspective that challenges the traditional male representations of women. The plays tend to be humorous in their exploration of the cultural and social politics of their countries, while seriously examining the absurdities of everyday life.

A Buffalo resident, Vargas has been a member of the UB faculty since 1985. She lectures widely and has delivered a number of papers at conferences and theater festivals throughout the United States on the subject of Latin American authors and literature.

She is the co-translator of “La casa en la playa (The House on the Beach)” by Mexican novelist Juan Garcia Ponce and has published articles on Mexican literature and Spanish-American drama. She is co-editing a collection of essays on Spanish-American women playwrights and conducting research for a book whose working title is “Staging Feminine Identity: A Study in Three Acts.”