El sueno de la razón (The Sleep of Reason), and: Anillos para una dama (Rings for a Lady), and: Las salvajes en Puente San Gil, and: El tintero (The Inkwell), and: La camisa (The Shirt), and: Coronada y el toro (Coronada and the Bull), and: Historias intimas del paraiso (Behind the Scenes in Eden) (review)

134 the minnesota review El sueno de la razón (The Sleep ofReason) by Antonio Buero-Vallejo. In Antonio BueroVallejo : Three Plays. Trans. Marion Peter Holt. San Antonio, Texas: Trinity University Press, 1985. Pp. 2-58. $14.95 (paper). Anillospara una dama (Ringsfor a Lady) by Antonio Gala. Madrid: Ediciones MK, 1982. 68 pp. 200 pesetas (paper). Unpublished translation available from translator: Edward Borsoi , Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. Las salvajes en Puente San Gil by Jose' Martin Recuerda. In Jose'Martin Recuerda. Ed. Francisco Ruiz Ramo'n. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1977. Pp. 53-172. 400 pesetas (paper). El tintero (The Inkwell) by Carlos Muïïiz and La camisa (The Shirt) by Lauro Olmo. In Plays of Protest from the Franco Era. Trans. Patricia W. O'Connor. Madrid: Sociedad General Española de Libreria, 1981. Pp. 179-250 and 107-74. Available from Estreno, University of Cincinnati: $3.00 (paper). Coronaday el toro (Coronada and the Bull) by Francisco Nieva. In Drama Contemporary: Spain, ed. Marion Peter Holt. Trans. Emil Signes. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1985. Pp. 191-229. $8.98 (paper). $19.95 (cloth). Historias intimas del paraíso (Behind the Scenes in Eden) by Jaime Salom. Unpublished translation by Marion Peter Holt. Available through Lucky Kroll Agency, 390 West End Ave., New York City 10024. To those unfamiliar with the reality of contemporary Spain, it doubtless seems unlikely that the same country that gave us the word machismo could also produce a strong current of feminist theater. Indeed, some North American Hispanists, as well as many Spaniards, are unaware of the phenomenon. Although playwrights at the turn of the century—like Benito Perez Galdos, Nobel Prize winner Jacinto Benavente, and the husband-wife team Gregorio and Maria Martinez Sierra—developed strong female characters and openly advocated greater freedom for women, the dominant ideology during the long Franco regime (1939-75) was grounded in a reactionary Catholicism that included among its goals the return of women to their traditional roles as virtuous wives and mothers. It is difficult to generalize in explaining why some writers have advocated a feminist stance while others consciously or unconsciously perpetuated the sex-role stereotyping that permeated official Spanish culture. The one successful Spanish woman playwright of the contemporary period, Ana Diosdado (b. 1938), has not openly espoused feminist causes in any of her original stage plays; her reluctance to do so was shared by many women authors during the Franco period. And the male dramatists who have championed these causes include some who, until the decriminalization of homosexuality in democratic Spain, used the oppression of women as the vehicle for a criticism of machismo that they have since been able to express in less veiled terms. Others have been profoundly affected by personal relationships with women. Antonio Gala (b. 1936), the most successful serious playwright in Spain today, has frequently used women protagonists to voice his plea for individual freedom including the freedom to love whomever one chooses. His familiarity with anti-feminist archetypes is readily apparent in Petra Regalada (1980) in which the title character incarnates both the Virgin and the whore. Somewhat less radical is the earlier Rings for a Lady (1973), a witty démythification of the Cid-Jimena story. It debunks both official history, with its self-serving accounts of the national hero's exploits, and the traditional image of the Cid as a perfect husband and father. The widowed Jimena attempts unsuccessfully to rebel against the establishment—the king and the Church—in order to lead her own life and marry the man she loves. Her story is an allegory of the Spanish political situation, both past and present. The decision of Gala to present the woman's perspective on history is a deliberate one; he is quite conscious that women, as a class, have been more repressed than other groups and believes that they are able to give a more eloquent and even humorous expression to their social criticism than men are. It is doubtless because Jimena is such a compelling, universal reviews 135 figure that Ringsfor a Lady has become Gala's most popular play in Spain and the Americas and has been...