Greek Tragedy or Theatre of the Absurd? Montes Huidobro's Oscuro total

Authors

  • Phyllis Zatlin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17161/latr.v37i2.1466

Keywords:

Specific Literature, Cuban literature, Time Period, 1900-1999, Subject Author, Montes Huidobro, Matías (1931- ), Subject Work, Oscuro total, Literary Genre, drama, Literary Source, (sources in) Ancient Greek tragedy, theater of the absurd,

Abstract

In his groundbreaking study on the Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin suggests a connection between Greek tragedy and the twentieth-century movement. The connection is made explicit in Matías Montes Huidobro's Oscuro total. The play has as its pre-text a real episode: the 1989 killing, in California, of José and Mary Louise ("Kitty") Menéndez by their sons Lyle and Erik. Montes Huidobro takes the horrifying, real tale of a dysfunctional family in the United States and re-creates it as a powerful meld of classic Greek tragedy and contemporary absurdist theatre of cruelty. (PZ)

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Published

2004-03-01

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Zatlin, Phyllis. “Greek Tragedy or Theatre of the Absurd? Montes Huidobro’s Oscuro Total”. Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 37, no. 2, Mar. 2004, pp. 115-26, https://doi.org/10.17161/latr.v37i2.1466.