Men and Angels: Three South American Comedies

Willis Knapp Jones, a noted translator and specialist in Latin-American theatre, has chosen these three comedies as examples of the flowering of truly national theatre in Paraguay, Chile, and Argentina:The Fate of Chipi' Gonzalez,by Jose Maria Rivarola Matto;Man of the Century,by Miguel Frank; andThe Quack Doctor,by Camilo Darthes and Carlos Damel. As the title under which the three plays are collected suggests, the plays reflect a unique if irreverent combination of fact and fantasy. Yet, as the reader will perceive, underlying this fantasy and love of the quixotic are themes of intrinsic universal appeal, the mark of creative genius in any language. The Fate of Chipi Gonzalez,set in rural Paraguay, pits the Angel Saul and the devil mom in a struggle for the soul of Chipi, an illiterate foot­ball champion. But Chipi escapes them allthe football team, the devil, and the angel.Man of the Centuryfeatures fast-moving, hilarious situations created by Angel XM26 when he is sent to check up on a middle-class Chilean family in preparation for the Last Judgement. Angel XM26, clad in wings of waterproof nylon designed by Dior, proves unequal to his task, and all Heaven and Hell ring with the problems thus created.The Quack Doctor,a simple and delightful comedy, explores the folkways in an Argentine village, where a woman doctor, unable to win acceptance in a society which refuses to approve of a woman trained as a physician, meets her patients at their own superstitious level. A Contemporary Latin American Classics series book, edited by J. Cary Davis, Professor of Spanish at Southern Illinois University.Jones, Willis K. is the author of 'Men and Angels: Three South American Comedies', published 1970 under ISBN 9780809304288 and ISBN 0809304287.