Meta-drama and subjectivity in three works by Jose Luis Ramos Escobar

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the metadramatic techniques that th e Puerto Rican playwright Jose Luis Ramos Escobar uses in a novel with meta dramatic codes and two plays. Although we will discuss total dramatic struc ture in these metadramas, we will focus on techniques that break the illusi on of character acting. The principal means for achieving this Verfremdungs effekt is the metacharacter, even though the effect is not limited to this device. What interests us particularly is to see how the works dramatize id entities based on social class, race, gender and nation to problematize soc ial hierarchies and the habitus that said identities articulate and reprodu ce. In these texts we see that Ramos Escobar makes his opaque characters ve hicles for exploring the cultural dramatic complex in which they exist.