Personal information

Surname: Diosdado
First name: Ana
Middle names: Isabel
Commonly known as: Ana Diosdado
Other versions of the name: Ana Álvarez-Diosdado Gisbert
Born: 21 May 1938, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Biography

Ana Diosdado (1938) is one of Spain’s most successful female playwrights. Born in Buenos Aires, she was introduced to theatre at an early age. Her father was the famous Spanish director and actor, Enrique Diosdado, and her godmother was Margarita Xirgu, the renowned actress who performed in many of Federico García Lorca’s plays. In fact, Ana Diosdado’s first role in the theatre was at five years old, alongside Xirgu, in Lorca’s play Mariana Pineda. In 1950 Diosdado moved with her family to Madrid, where she began writing novels. She also started acting and writing for the theatre. Her first play, Olvida los tambores (Forget the Drums) premiered in 1970. It won the Maite Prize and was made into a film in 1975. As well as her own playwriting, Ana Diosdado has produced adaptations of classical texts such as Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Her engagement in Spanish cultural life extends beyond the theatre – she has worked as a newspaper columnist and screenwriter and is also a well-known television actress. In 2001 she became the first woman to head the influential Spanish cultural institution, the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (General Society for Authors and Editors).

Themes

Ana Diosdado explores a number of themes through her theatre. Early plays feature relationship conflicts and criticisms of the materialism of contemporary society. In other plays she moves on to explore more fantastical themes, such as science fiction. In later works she returns to more realistic themes, dramatising the alienation and isolation of living in a consumer culture (Zatlin 1995: 131). Diosdado’s work also deconstructs and challenges traditional sex/gender roles, with plays often featuring strong female characters and weaker male characters. Because of this, her work is often examined from a feminist perspective, even though she insists that it is in fact ‘humanist’ (García 1983: 7), in that it is ‘concerned with the progress and liberation of all human beings’ (O’Connor 1990: 381). Even though her plays dramatise negative aspects of consumer culture, Diosdado has herself been criticised for creating ‘consumer theatre’, given its popularity, and because of the perception that her plays tend to please audiences with happy endings (Zatlin 1995: 135). This is, as Phyllis Zatlin points out, in spite of the considerable number of deaths and suicides that feature in Diosdado’s work (1995: 135).

• García, Angeles. 1983. Review of Ana Diosdado’s Spanish adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, ‘La fidelidad al drama de Ibsen’, El País, p. 7, 29 January (in Spanish)

• O’Connor, Patricia. 1990. ‘Women Playwrights in Contemporary Spain and the Male-Dominated Canon’, Signs, 15.2, 376-90

• Zatlin, Phyllis. 1995. ‘El teatro de Ana Diosdado. ¿Conformista?’. In Teatro español contemporàneo: autores y tendendcias, eds. Alfonso de Toro and Wilfried Floeck, pp. 125-46. Kassel, Reichenberger (in Spanish)

Style

Diosdado’s plays can be separated into those that are realistic in theme and setting, and those that are more expressionistic or fantastical. Many of her plays are structurally complex, with different time periods and places occupying the stage at the same time.

Plays in the database

• Olvida los tambores (1970) / Forget the Drums
• Usted también podrá disfrutar de ella (1973) / Yours for the Asking

Useful reading and websites

• Davies, Catherine. 1998. ‘Contemporary Women on Stage: Ana Diosdado (1938-)’. In Spanish Women’s Writing, 1849-1996, ed. Catherine Davies, pp. 268-78. London, The Athlone Press

• O’Connor, Patricia. 1990. ‘Women Playwrights in Contemporary Spain and the Male-Dominated Canon’, Signs, 15.2, 376-90

• Zatlin, Phyllis. 1995. ‘El teatro de Ana Diosdado. ¿Conformista?’. In Teatro español contemporàneo: autores y tendendcias, eds. Alfonso de Toro and Wilfried Floeck, pp. 125-46. Kassel, Reichenberger (in Spanish)

Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 23 May 2011.

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