Berman, Sabina (1955–)

Sabina Berman, born August 21, 1955, is a Mexican playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and poet. Her work has earned both commercial success and critical acclaim. The plays Yankee, Herejía, Rompecabezas, and the children's play La Maravillosa Historia del Niño Pingüica, each were awarded the Mexican National Theatre Prize. Much of Berman's work combines spectacular stage effects and witty repartee with an exploration of identity in Mexico, including the gender experiments of El suplicio del placer, inquiries into the colonial inquisition of a Jewish family in Herejía, and campy interpretations of national myth in Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda. Berman has expanded her focus to international subjects, with hit plays on Sigmund Freud and Molière. She has also adapted English-language texts, such as the play eXtras, for the Mexican stage. Berman's political concerns emerge in her screenplay Backyard, about the unsolved murders of hundreds of women near the U.S.-Mexican border, and the nonfiction work Democracia cultural on the state of government-funded arts in Mexico.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America; Theater.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adler, Heidrun, and Jaime Chabaud, eds. Un viaje sin fin: Teatro mexicano hoy. Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2004.

Berman, Sabina. The Theatre of Sabina Berman: The Agony of Ecstasy and Other Plays. Translated by Adam Versényi. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.

Bixler, Jacqueline E., ed. Sediciosas seducciones: Sexo, poder y palabras en el teatro de Sabina Berman. Mexico: Escenología, 2004.

Niebylski, Dianna C. "Caught in the Middle: Ambiguous Gender and Social Politics in Sabina Berman's Play Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda." Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 39, no. 1 (2005): 153-177.

                                            Emily Hind