Changing Signs: A Semiotic Study of Selected Plays by Mar..ia Irene Fornes

Abstract

Maria Irene Fornes occupies an unusual position among American dramatists today. A Cuban immigrant to the United States, she spent her early years (1954-57) in Europe as a painter and later worked as a textile designer in New York (1957-60). A playwright since 1960, she has written over 25 plays and achieved critical and popular recognition, yet retains the incongruous. reputation of being a 'fringe' playwright. This curious phenomenon continues to puzzle those who follow her progress and write about her work, even as they call her "America's truest poet of the theater". (Voice 85).

Fornes' off-Broadway plays have earned her six Obie awards; however, her single Broadway play, Promenade, although it also won an Obie, was never as successful as similar Broadway musicals (such as Cats and Les Miserables) that ranfor long periods, and Fornes never became a familiar face on the Broadway scene. Some critics attributed this to her anti-capitalist and anarchic stance, which would not tend to make her popular _, in the predominantly wealthy Broadway milieu. "One definition of 'Promenade' might be that it is a protest musical for people too sophisticated to protest." (Barnes 27) " ... making fun of the flightiness and trivial concerns of the rich ... "(B.G.M. 57).