From Suffering to Shangri-La: Maria Irene Fornes’ Musings on the Future in Enter THE NIGHTara

Abstract

This essay discusses how the construction of alternative spaces in theatre can challenge the main modes of spatiality by focusing on the Cuban-American playwright Maria Irene Fornes’s Enter the Night (1993). The play produces two different modes of spatiality, one of which is overlaid with references to film and music and functions as a backdrop to the main line of development. These side texts finally override the main text and subtly challenge the primary spatial perceptions. This essay argues that the secondary sources as well as the caring relationship between the characters create a space that ultimately produces the message of the play by resisting the overlying sense of darkness and illness that rules the lives of the characters.