Date of Award

6-2008

Document Type

Union College Only

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

First Advisor

Victoria Martinez

Language

English

Keywords

plays, theater, audience, women, continue

Abstract

Since 1993, there have been over four hundred cases of young women who have disappeared in Juarez, Mexico. The incompetence of the Mexican authorities has allowed the violation of women to continue and in response to the atrocities; Mexican playwrights have written plays in order to convey the violence against women and the impunity that allows it to continue. This thesis explores the works of two playwrights, Alan Aguilar’s Los trazos del viento and Edeberto Galindo Noriega’s Lomas de Poleo and how both use experimental theater as a foundation for their plays. By using the principles of experimental theater made popular by Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud during the early twentieth century the authors use the plays to breakdown the fourth wall in theater that separates the audience from the performance in order to create an experience for the audience that provokes a strong reaction. My thesis explores the semiotics of the plays, the kinesic acts produced by the actors, and elements of magical realism. Although they are two very different pieces of theater, the similar dramatic techniques create a mood of horror and leave the audience with a long-lasting impression of the pain and injustice of the crimes.

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