Defiant Acts: Four Plays by Diana Raznovich

Defiant Acts/Actos Desafiantes presents four bilingual plays by one of Argentina’s major playwrights/cartoonists: Diana Raznovich. Since the late 1960s, Raznovich’s work both as a cartoonist and in the theater has been marked by her sense of humor and her love of disruption, inversion, critique, and the unexpected. Her career as a playwright was stalled when repeated threats on her life by the Armed Forces pressured Raznovich into exile in 1975, shortly before the military coup that initiated the Dirty War. She lived and worked in Spain, teaching dramaturgy in an independent theater school until she returned to Argentia in 1981 to participate in the teatro abierto (Open Theater) festival, which brought together fellow blacklisted artists to produce a cycle of one-act plays, proving Argentina’s artists had not succumbed to the dictatorship’s silencing tactics. Included in this volume is Raznovich’s contribution to the festival, Desconcierto (Disconcerted), as well as Jardin de otono (Inner Gardens, 1983), Casa Matriz (MaTRIX, Inc., 1991), and De atras para adelante (Rear Entry, 1995). Raznovich has earned international prizes and awards for her theater. Her works have been translated into German, French, Italian, and English. These translations by Victoria Martinez, in collaboration with Lidia Ramirez, were given workshop readings by professional actors to make them stageworthy.