What’s Old is New Again: Ancient Greek Theater Alive in the Spanish Caribbean

Abstract

This chapter returns to the origins of theater from ancient Greece to understand how the myths created then continue to influence the creation of theater written and produced in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic dialoguing with the construction of identity within the sociohistorical moment. The influence of Greek theater is examined in the Cuban Virgilio Piñera’s Electra Garrigó (1941), La pasión según Antígona Pérez (1968) from Luis Rafael Sánchez of Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Franklin Domínguez’s Lisístrata odia a la política: obra teatral en tres actos inspirada en un tema de Aristófanes (1981). The theatrical borrowing from three different plays of the ancient world provides these national canons legitimacy while the works also challenge the creation of the global canon.