Maruxa Vilalta was a Mexican playwright and author. Although Vilalta has written novels and short stories, her main work has been in the theater, as a playwright. Her plays have been characterized as both naturalistic and absurd, and often include elements of violence (both physical and psychological).
Background
Maruxa Vilalta was born on September 23, 1932, in Barcelona, Spain. She was the daughter of Antonio Vilalta y Vidad, a lawyer and official in the Spanish government, and Maria Soteras Mauri, a lawyer. When she was 7 years old her family immigrated to Mexico.
Education
After completing her primary and secondary education at the Liceo Franco Mexicano in Mexico City, Maruxa Vilalta studied Spanish literature at the college of philosophy and letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Maruxa Vilalta began her writing career as a novelist in 1957, with El castigo (the Punishment). When, in 1959, she adapted her second published novel, Los desorientados (1958; the disoriented ones), for the stage, Vilalta was so impressed by the immediacy of the theatrical medium and the concrete life it gave to her characters that she dedicated herself thereafter almost exclusively to playwriting. Los desorientados offers a poetic-realistic treatment of the problems that young people often face.
Her second work, Un país feliz centers on the difficulties experienced by the Spanish people under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Soliloquio del tiempo is an extended monologue, featuring Time as the central character. In Un día loco, published in 1965 as part of the Trio collection, Vilalta creates a monologue that is both confessional and self-referential. The central character, La Mujer, begins her story by speaking directly to the audience, confessing the "crime" of her refusal to socialize with her house guests. In addition to her dialogue with the audience, La Mujer also engages in an ongoing self-interrogation, in which she questions the identity of the person on the other end of a mysterious phone call.
While her early plays, especially Number 9, won for her considerable critical attention, it was in 1970, with Together Tonight, Loving Each Other So Much, that she really established herself as one of Mexico’s leading experimental dramatists. This was the first of three plays that would win for her the coveted Alarcón Prize for the best play of the year; in 1978, The Story of Him won that prize on a unanimous vote, something rather rare in the award’s history.
In 1975, with the prizewinning Nothing Like the Sixteenth Floor, Vilalta began directing her own plays, and as a director, she has been closely associated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which is considered the major locus for experimental play production in Mexico.
Her other plays include Nada como el piso 16, Historia de él, Una mujer, dos hombres y un balazo, Una voz en el desierto. Vida de San Jerónimo, Francisco de Asís, Jesucristo entre nosotros, En blanco y negro. Ignacio y los jesuítas, etc.