After Death

Luisa Capetillo (Puerto Rico, 1913)
Translated by Sarah J. Townsend

Written in Ybor City, Florida by a Puerto Rican feminist, anarchist, and labor organizer, this ‘Real-Life Comedy in Verse and Prose’ is an unorthodox example of teatro obrero (workers’ theatre). Two mourners meet over the grave of a dead woman: her long-time lover, a man who abandoned her in life but idealizes her in death as the epitome of feminine beauty; and a devoted female friend of the deceased, who comically calls him out on his hypocrisy. A younger man accused of ‘seducing’ the unnamed woman unexpectedly arrives, and a gentle spoof on the Romantic tradition of the duel ensues.