Out of the Wings

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Luz negra (c.1966), Álvaro Menén Desleal

Titles
English title: Black Light
Date written: c. 1966
First publication date: 1967
First production date: 1966
Keywords: morality > crime, morality > punishment, violence > social, violence > crime, identity > class/social standing, love, history > change/revolution, ideology > politics, ideology > morality, power > use and abuse, art > theatre > metatheatre
Pitch

What pretty heads we have now.  And independent too …

Black Light is a conversation between two severed heads in the aftermath of an execution. The heads belong to Goter, a revolutionary, and Moter, a thief.  The punishment of death was for their respective crimes of thinking and stealing.  Strangers before death, they make friends under these unusual circumstances.  But if they can converse, are they really dead? Endlessly sidetracked by the digressions of their colourful and absurd conversation, the two strive to know what kind of existence it is they are living.

Synopsis

The play begins in a public square littered with human detritus and leaflets soaked in blood, the publicity to accompany the spectacle of two public executions.

The decapitated corpses ... (Read more...)

Critical response

Álvaro Menén Desleal is a prize-winning dramatist. He won the Juegos Florales de Quezaltenango prize in 1965 for Luz negra. He also won the Premio Nacional de Cultura (El Salvador) in ... (Read more...)

Editions
  • Menén Desleal. Álvaro. 1967. Luz negra. El Salvador, D.G.P.

Useful readings and websites
  • Schanzer, George. O. 1974. ‘El teatro hispanoamericano de post mortem,’ Latin American Theatre Review, 7.2, 5-16 (in Spanish)

Entry written by Gwendolen Mackeith. Last updated on 5 October 2010.

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