Theatrical presents: The plays of Maria Irene Fornes.

Abstract

Although Maria Irene Fornes' plays deserve critical attention from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, they initially require close readings to provide a foundation for theoretical discourse. The bulk of my dissertation is an analysis of four of Fornes' most famous and successful plays, emphasizing the performative possibilities suggested by the literary texts. My readings are formal, and concentrate on the theatrical constructs of character and stage space. In a chapter on Fefu and Her Friends, I explore the female characters' efforts at self-characterization in political and theatrical contexts. My reading of Mud emphasizes Fornes' concerns with the tentative relationship between language and physical presence in the theater. In Sarita I explore the conflicting powers of art and social politics. And The Conduct of Life I read as an explicit summons to women spectators to recognize the means to assert authority through the theater, as actors or spectators. Each reading focuses on the theatrical image's potential effects on the course of the drama, and the spectator's experience. Fornes' theater is a theater of intimacy. Throughout her career she has worked to demystify and literalize the spectator's role by embracing the theatrical logic that an audience is necessary to theatrical process. This strain runs through all my chapters, and is the crux of a fifth chapter, focusing on the Fornesian maxim that the theatrical is political, and the political, theatrical. In that chapter, I trace the development of the character's relationship to the literary and theatrical texts, as Fornes has traced that relationship for three decades, and the political implications of this theatrical construct--i.e. of the self's role in community. Fornes' plays illustrate how the theater can make real the metaphor of theatricality; her plays converge on the powers inherent to the roles of actor, director, playwright, and spectator, and how those powers can and need to be harnessed for artistic and political progress. Fornes' spectators are to take the theatrical presences of Fornes' characters literally, to locate themselves within the theatrical present of her dramas, and then to embrace the genuine power--constructive if haunting--of her theatrical images.Ph.D.English Language and LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103278/1/9308404.pdfDescription of 9308404.pdf : Restricted to UM users only