About the Play:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

Widows is a full-length drama by Ariel Dorfman. Adapted from his own novel of the same name, Widows depicts the quiet rebellion of a group of peasant women whose husbands, sons and fathers have disappeared into the deadly maw of the military junta fighting on behalf of a rich oligarchy.

Widows is about a town gripped by oppression that is completely peopled by women. All of them are waiting, seemingly in vain, for their men to return, all of which have been swallowed up by the vicious fascist government. An old woman forecasts a change on the horizon, and suddenly the river begins delivering the unidentifiable corpses of men to the women. This stirs them into a steady and growing revolt – demanding the return of their men, alive or dead, and if dead, their killers.

Widows premiered in 1991 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Its New York premiere was in 2008 at 59E59 Theaters off Broadway in New York City.

Cast: 13 female, 8 male

What people say:

"Widows asks questions which cannot easily be ignored." — BBC Devon

"Heartbreaking and tragic, the play is a poignant reminder of the atrocities that often go unnoticed in the world." — Village Voice

"A remarkable attempt to dramatise in a semi-mythical way the consequences of the recent appalling abuses of human rights." — Independent on Sunday

About the Author:

Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean-American poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright. A Chilean expatriate who was forced into exile after the 1973 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende and established General Pinochet as dictator, he lives with his family in Durham, North Carolina, where he now holds the Walter Hines Page chair at Duke University. His numerous books have been translated into over twenty languages.