"In the seventeen dramatic texts examined in this study, women writers from Spanish America have self-consciously incorporated games into their plays' structures to highlight from a woman's perspective the idea that life, as well as the theater, is a game. Some dramas are so overtly about games that the word appears significantly in their titles. Others reflect game playing in less direct ways or connect metatheatrical examinations of role-playing to the ludic. In every drama examined, however, a game of some sort plays a key role in the construction of the playtext. By looking at the nature and number of the games played in these women-authored dramas from the past fifty years, we can see the ways in which play is used to effect social control and the connections between play and aggression, gender, history, and politics. In these representative dramas, the theater serves as a vehicle for encouraging audiences to think about (if not act upon) the issues that have shaped Spanish America. Games, rules, winners, and losers join together as the playwrights explore events and times of fundamental importance in their countries' historical and political evolution."--BOOK JACKET.