"Jaime Salom has been recognized for decades as one of Spain's most important contemporary dramatists and his work produced throughout the Spanish-speaking Americas. . . . These sparkling translations will surely encourage English language readers and producers to become better acquainted with the work of this engaging and stimulating dramatist. . . . These three witty meditations on theatre, art, sexuality and power have been engagingly rendered into English by three of America's finest Spanish translators, Marion Peter Holt, Gregary J. Racz, and Phyllis Zatlin. The book also contains some excellent supplementary material in the form of a substantial introduction to the life and work of Salom, a complete listing of plays and premieres, a useful selected bibliography, and sixteen interesting production photographs, five of them of the works in this collection."
—Bulletin of Spanish Studies
Three Comedies represents the first English-language collection of plays by Jaime Salom, one of Spain's most important contemporary dramatists. His forty-plus works encompass an impressive array of subgenres, including domestic dramas, mysteries, political allegories, historical comedies, metaphysical meditations, and tales of Spanish life. Best known for his veiled critiques of Francisco Franco's regime, Salom went on to explore less overtly politicized themes following the dictator's death in 1975. This welcome new volume features a trio of comedies from his later phase that offer acute insight into life under the eased restraints of a nominally democratic Spain.
Included in this collection are Behind the Scenes in Eden (1978), a wry retelling of events in Eden from a feminist perspective; Rigmaroles (1990), which recounts Golden Age author Juan Timoneda's domestic turmoil precipitated by a change in political winds; and The Other William (1998), in which Shakespeare appears as an opportunistic actor taking credit for someone else's writing. All three comedies revel in the foibles of protagonists who, in their search for self-determination, never quite manage to escape the specter of tyrannical authority.
