ABSTRACT
Antonia Bueno Mingallón, contemporary Spanish playwright, actress, director, and producer, shifted her focus from acting to writing in 2000. Her works cover a wide variety of topics including relationships, women’s roles, sexual abuse, racism, and immigration. Lourdes Bueno Pérez believes that the playwright “fully submerges herself in history to bring life and, above all, voice to female characters who, not only in the past but even in our present, suffer injustice and discrimination by much of society” (17). 1 In several of her plays, Bueno chooses the plight of Maghrebi women as a vehicle for her literary and societal preoccupations. These female protagonists migrate to Spain in search of a promised land for their children, yet their initial idealization of this country leads to disenchantment. This study will focus on two dramas that exemplify these trends: the one-act play Aulidi (2006), 2 in which Bueno represents a mother, Aisha, who stands over her sleeping child revealing to him her hopes, dreams, and struggles; and the twenty-five-scene play Zahra: Favorita de Al-Andalus (2009), 3 in which Bueno presents two versions of the same woman born on either side of the Strait at different points in history. By exploring this trans-Mediterranean traffic, Bueno presents the ramifications of migration in contemporary society.
