Feminist Politics of Location: Staging Sexuality and Violence in the Drama of Griselda Gambaro

The literary reputation of Griselda Gambaro and her masterpieces The Walls, Information for Foreigners, and Antigona Furiosa remain an interest in studies of modern Latin American drama. The playwright and her dramas still draw scholars? attention as they deal with political issues and disputes derived from modern Argentinean history during the military coups and the period of the Dirty War (1976-83), and the consequences?whether social, psychological, representational, and/or ethical-- that were caused by these clashes. Indeed, not only is Gambaro privileged in dramatizing subjects like violence and sexuality that capture her spectators? interests, but she is also distinguished in the way she utilizes staging in effectively dramatizing these topics. This paper aims at exploring Gambaro?s techniques of staging violence and sexuality in the aforementioned plays, in the light of the feminist politics of location. In particular, the examination targets Gambaro?s recruitment of a signifying code of space, along with notions of absence and presence, altogether comprising a feminist issue of location and power, as argued by major feminist critics such as Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar.