Theater

The dramaturgy written by Cuban American, Puerto Rican, and Dominican American women propels Hispanic-Caribbean theater beyond the geographical borders of their islands, thus creating and nurturing, transnational cultural enclaves that support it while also transforming the cultural theatrical environment of the United States. This dramaturgy, with its themes and arguments, puts into practice the feminist and LGBTQ critical theories with a focus on minority groups in US society.
This work analyzes Hispanic-Caribbean theater traditions from their origins to the transformations they undergo in the United States given the influence of the various Caribbean diasporas. The essential characteristics of this drama, written by women, lead to the creation of a new theater characterized by its hybrid and bilingual roots. This dramatic cultural transformation reveals the diversity and inclusion of ethnic, racial, sexual identities, and the myriad intersectionalities found in the diasporic island communities from which it takes flight.

The moon as a symbol reflects the social, religious and historical
tumult of Ben Jonson's day. In Cynthia's Revels, the moon is a
highly mannered, religious symbol with classical overtones. It paid
tribute to Elizabeth, another virgin ruler, as well as providing
the audience with an ideal of chastity to emulate. In Masque of
Queens, the black face of the moon rather than the white appears.
Spouting common superstitions of the day, the witches bring to mind
the then current religious inquisitions and King James I's fascination
with demonology. Last but not least appears Ursula in
Bartholomew Fair. Lusty and capricious, she projects the image of the
moon promoted by astrologers. Her lunatic influence on her "customers"
underlines the impact of the telescope, which by revealing imperfections
on the lunar face, brought the moon down to earth. The symbol begins
as a transcendant emblem and ends as a mundane caricature.

The traditional, realist, dramatic concept of coherent character identity is ruptured by the two plays Les Chevaliers de la table ronde and El publico. Cocteau's and Lorca's works, which are usually labeled as surrealist due to their apparently disjointed nature, are actually embodiments of the poet-playwrights' continuing attempts to reveal that identity, including gendered identity, is a performance. The metadramatic elements of the plays such as discourse, costumes and gender are unstable and voluntarily changeable; they have repercussions beyond the proscenium. Cocteau and Lorca invite their audiences to consider the performative nature of their identities.

The Julia character, as depicted in the essay in Pentimento,
provides a character model for Lillian Hellman's plays.
Julia's strength of personal responsibility provides Hellman
a measure by which her characters succeed or fail, a
criterion upon which personal worth is judged. Julia's
strength, compassion, and personal responsibility are
depicted in varying degrees in the characters created in
Watch on the Rhine, The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes,
Another Part of the Forest, The Searching Wind, and The
Autumn Garden. As reflected in the plays, Julia is
Hellman's model, her ideal; she is the vehicle for Hellman's
strong personal and social statements.

There is a linguistic homoerotic flirtation between the characters of Viola and Olivia in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Through Jane Gallop's analysis of Jacques Lacan, readers can view the eroticized exchange between these female characters by observing the manner in which each character utilizes both words containing feminine roots or metaphors that are feminine in nature. While Viola and Olivia express female-female desire, they search for their own identities in the patriarchal system that they must exist. They challenge the idea that women need to be both sexually and verbally passive. Viola represents a woman's removal from and re-emergence into the patriarchal system through her disguise. She is able to use the idea of the phallus in her interaction with Olivia, allowing both characters to experience phallic power---both by wielding power and by affirming their feminine characteristics through specific language.