La comida como ritual sangriento en la dramaturgia de Roberto Cossa

This article looks at how the dramatist Roberto Cossa approaches familiar scenes of families eating together.  The plays included here are Nuestro fin de semana ("Our Weekend") from Cossa’s first period; and La Nona ("Grandma"), No hay que llorar ("No need to cry"), El tio Loco ("The Crazy Uncle") and Anos dificiles ("Difficult Years") from his second. Studying Cossa’s use of meals allows us, on one hand, to understand the symbolic value that they acquire in his work over time; and, on the other hand, to examine his esthetic evolution.  In this way, we will examine scenes ranging from the tense mundaneness of an everyday meal, to the strain created by sex and violence appearing at the table. Voracity becomes the materialization of the victimizer’s selfishness and acquires a symbolic status that points to the dictatorship offstage.