how the story had to be told.” A workshop production of Death and the Maiden was staged in Santiago, Chile, opening in March, 1991, and in July of that year the play had its world premiere at London’s Royal Court Upstairs. In November the production, which received the London Time Out Award for best play of 1991, moved to the Royal Court Mainstage. Reception of the play was positive, critics finding it both dramatically engaging as well as historically timely (given the number of societies around the world facing painful legacies of repressive regimes). The play had its Broadway premiere on March 17, 1992, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Glenn Close as Paulina (a performance for which she received an Antionette “Tony” Perry Award), Richard Dreyfuss as Gerardo, and Gene Hackman as Miranda. The casting of three Anglo actors inĪ play with a Latin American context was protested by Latino organizations and the Actors’ Equity Association (the union for American actors). Dorfman’s play, ultimately, did not receive as high praise in the United States as it had in England but did create enough interest to inspire a film adaptation in 1994. Death and the Maiden is valued as a dramatic work that examines the psychological repercussions of human rights abuses. Playwright, essayist, novelist, poet, and short story writer Ariel Dorfman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 6, 1942, the son of an economist and a literature teacher.
His life illustrates the fragmented experience of the modern Latin American exile. At the age of two, his family was forced to flee to the United States because of his father’s opposition to the Argentine government of Juan Peron. Dorfman’s father was one of the architects of the United Nations, and the family lived in New York for ten years before leaving in 1954, during the McCarthy era, to settle in Chile.
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