Magda Castellví deMoor, professor of Spanish, recently authored a book about women playwrights in her native Argentina.

DeMoor Explores Argentine Women Playwrights

June, 2004—Theatre has always been regarded as one of the most ancient forms of human communication. It serves to entertain, enlighten, and provoke, while providing an outlet for powerful emotions. In Argentina, however, as Magda Castellví deMoor has discovered, theatre is also a means of expression for several politically and culturally active female Argentine playwrights.

deMoor, professor of Spanish and director of the Latin American Studies Program, recently published Dramaturgas argentinas: teatro, política y género, chronicling the work of five women playwrights in her native Argentina: Griselda Gambaro, Beatriz Mosquera, Cristina Escofet, Luisa Calcumil, and Patricia Zangaro. The result of years of research, Dramaturgas argentinas focuses on the relationship of their dramatic discourse with politics and the notion of gender as a social construct. These playwrights have been responsive to the challenges of the 1980s during the Argentine Dirty War, the test of re-democratization in the war’s aftermath, and the feminist movements of the time, with plays that bring attention from a gendered perspective to political repression, marginality and exclusion, patriarchal ideology, and social change.

The Dirty War, an extraordinarily violent period in Argentine history, began on March 24, 1976, after the Argentine armed forces overthrew the existing government, headed up by President Isabel Martinez de Peron. A “national reorganization” targeted leftists, liberals, and others whose ideas did not dovetail with the new regime, and nearly 30,000 people were arbitrarily abducted, often in broad daylight, and imprisoned, never to be seen again. The thousands who disappeared are referred to as “Desaparecidos”.

These five playwrights challenged the regime through creative expression, articulating their dissent through carefully contrived metaphors woven throughout their work. Subtly conveying their opposition to the political repression and the marginalization of women, the playwrights transformed a classic Argentine art form into shrewd political assertion.

“Argentines are theater-goers,” said deMoor of her native country. “These playwrights realized that they could reach people through theatre, by using metaphors and ambiguity in their work. The text is not explicit; it’s very subtle, but powerful.”

Each playwright focused on different issues facing Argentina during the Dirty War and its aftermath as the twentieth century came to an end, deMoor explained. Griselda Gambaro, born in 1928, paved the way for her younger counterparts, centering her work on the mechanisms of power and gender relations. Three years before the Dirty War even began, Gambaro prophetically anticipated the terrorism that her country would suffer in her play, “Information for Foreigners.” The play was banned in Argentina, and Gambaro fled the country during the war, taking refuge in Spain.

deMoor has a vested interest in Gambaro, who she chose as the subject of her Ph.D. dissertation. “Gambaro is recognized as one of the leading playwrights in Argentina, regardless of gender,” she says.

The other playwrights addressed other burning issues concerning life within the political turmoil. Cristina Escofet, a declared feminist, concentrates on the Argentine women’s movement of the 1980s, which partially coincided with the Dirty War. Escofet studies female archetypes and focuses her writing on the image and representation of women by the patriarchal Argentine society. Luisa Calcumil, a native Mapuche Indian who resides in the Patagonia region of the country, devotes much of her writing to the plight of the Indian villages. Her highly politicized message is often expressed through ritualistic theatre. Beatriz Mosquera focuses on the effects of repression within a totalitarian regime, using all aspects of family crisis as a metaphor for Argentina. Patricia Zangaro dedicates her theatrical works to the message of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo) a movement committed to exposing the disappearance of more than 500 children, who were abducted along with their parents or born in captivity during the war.

deMoor first began her exploration of this topic during the late 1980s, after networking with several of the playwrights during conferences and visits to Argentina. To facilitate her research over the years, she received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, in addition to Assumption College faculty grants. The resulting product was derived from work with the archives of the Argentores (Association of Argentine Authors) and the Instituto Nacional de Estudios de Teatro (National Institute of Theatre Studies), as well as personal interviews with the playwrights.

deMoor is very excited about including the book in the reference materials of her 20th Century Spanish-American Drama course this fall.

“Theatre is an intriguing artifact of culture,” she said. “It is rich in possibilities to raise social awareness of important issues.”