Dreaming on a Sunday in the Alameda and Other Plays

by Carlos Morton, Maria Herrera-Sobek

Overview

This innovative collection, featuring three plays by Carlos Morton, spans five centuries of Mexican and Mexican American history. In the tradition of teatro campesino, these plays present provocative revisions of historical events.

The first play, La Malinche, challenges the historical record of the tragic clash between Indians and Spaniards. The near-mythical La Malinche, who betrayed her country for love of Hernan Cortez but was then betrayed by him, is freed from the bonds of history to have her vengeance. She saves her legacy and destroys the legacy of the conquistador. In the second play, Dreaming on a Sunday in the Alameda, characters from a mural by painter Diego Rivera come to life to depict four centuries of Mexican history. Among these, Frida Kahlo, Rivera’s wife, finally steps out of his shadow as a woman and artist in her own right. Esperanza, a libretto for an opera, tells the story of Mexican miners who labored in twentieth-century Silver City, New Mexico. Based on the classic movie Salt of the Earth, this play deftly portrays the crisis that foretold the rise of the Chicano movement.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806136417
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	11/28/2004
Series:	Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Americas Series , #3
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Carlos Morton is director of the Center for Chicano Studies and Professor of Dramatic Art at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Maria Herrera-Sobek is Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Academic Policy at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she is also Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and the Luis Leal Endowed Chair.

Editorial Reviews

-“These three works display Morton’s wide-ranging creativity while exploring important historical issues of labor inequity, gender roles, and social justice. A necessary addition to any theatre collection.”—Jon D. Rossini, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, Davis



“Original and captivating, Morton’s plays offer a contemporary viewpoint through a reconceptualization of three Mexican/Chicano icons.”—Maria Herrera-Sobek, author of Santa Barraza: Artist of the Borderlands

From the Publisher