- Hijas olvidadas: Two Contemporary Plays by Hispanic Women Writers: paula.doc by Nora Adriana Rodríguez and Una estrella by Paloma Pedrero
Teaching literary texts for comprehension and cultural understanding is a significant challenge for instructors of intermediate and advanced language classes. This edition constitutes an excellent resource for facing this challenge. It brings exciting and significant contemporary plays written by and about Hispanic women writers to high-intermediate and advanced-level undergraduate students. In addition, it provides a wealth of communicative activities to accompany paula.doc by Nora Adriana Rodríguez (Argentina) and Una estrella by Paloma Pedrero (Spain). The preface establishes the clear connection between these well-selected plays, each of which dramatizes a young woman's confrontation with troubling memories (or the lack thereof) of a deceased parent in an attempt to grapple with her own identity. The introductions to the authors and pre- and postreading activities, designed for students at varied proficiency levels, invite the reader to comprehend, engage with, and reflect upon the plot and themes included, as well as the dramatic devices employed.
In a society paralyzed by fear and an induced forgetting, paula.doc dramatizes Paula's search for information about her mother, an Argentine desaparecida, and her unidentified father. Her quest takes on a particular urgency that the reader soon understands: she is pregnant and must discover her past before deciding whether to have the baby. The prereading section does a phenomenal job of setting up the reader's expectations and of contextualizing the allusions to the "dirty war," disappearances, and the search of H.I.J.O.S. for their parents. This clearly establishes the connection between Paula's search and the broader historical phenomenon. It also invites the reader to reflect on significant questions of national tragedy, human rights, freedom, and democracy in one's own country. Following paula.doc, the "Entreacto: Comprensión" section employs a wide variety of effective strategies to assist readers in constructing a detailed summary of the different sections of the play. "¡Abajo el telón! Poslectura" guides students' interpretation with communicative and writing exercises, focusing largely on the formal aspects of the work and the psychology of the protagonist.
Despite the fact that the preface promises that this edition will also "expose students to Hispanic culture and events of historical significance" (vii), this content is largely lost in the postreading activities. I believe that the editors overlooked a prime opportunity to enhance cultural understanding of the profound impact of something as intangible as silence in democratic Argentine society, as well as the scars the dirty war left in the lives of people seemingly not [End Page 504] directly affected. Characters who knew Paula's mother, such as Silvia (who carries the guilt of her inaction when Paula's mother asked her for help, which leaves her unable to speak of the traumatic past) and Viejo (who is tormented by guilt for having inadvertently caused Paula's mother's disappearance), powerfully expose social scars that reach far beyond those directly affected by disappearances. Additional themes for writing and conversation could supplement these otherwise impressive instructional tools to address this aspect of the play.
Like Paula, Estrella from Una estrella also investigates scenes from a traumatic past: the entire action takes place in a seedy bar where her deceased father once gambled and drank his life away. By chance she meets Juan, one of her father's former friends, and they spend much of the evening disputing their opposed memories of her father. While she bitterly remembers his neglect, Juan remembers him as a dear friend destroyed by war (ostensibly the Spanish Civil War). Juan sympathizes with Torres, Estrella's father, as their drinking and gambling led them down parallel paths in their domestic lives. Despite their initial refusal to see each other's point of view, Juan and Estrella eventually comprehend each other's struggle and, for this...