Emilio Carballido (1925-2008) was one of the most innovative and accomplished of Mexico's playwrights and one of the outstanding creators in the new Latin American theater. By his mid-forties he had already produced an impressive body of works in two very different veins. On the one hand, he mastered the techniques of the "well-made play." On the other, he developed a richly rewarding vein of fantasy, sometimes poetic, sometimes comic, sometimes macabre--and sometimes all three.

The plays in this volume are in the latter vein, ranging from surrealist farce in "The Intermediate Zone"...