Gender, Homosexuality, the Diasporic Experience, and Other Key Themes in Víctor Fragoso’s Theater

Born in 1944 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Victor Fernandez Fragoso, who opted to write under the name Victor Fragoso, was amongst the first Puerto Rican poets to focus on openly gay themes, an unusual accomplishment during his time in the face of homophobia and social oppression. Despite the hostile environment, he was recognized early on as a promising poet. In 1973, he published El reino de la espiga: canto al coraje de Walt y Federico, followed by Ser islas/Being Islands (1976a) three years later. He studied biology at the University of Puerto Rico and then moved to the United States to take a job. But, soon after, he quit the sciences and pursued graduate studies in literature at the University of Connecticut, eventually teaching in Livingston College at Rutgers University.In the U.S., Fragoso became the first openly gay Puerto Rican playwright to become key in New York City's theater scene. He wrote and directed plays for theater companies that played a major role in the inclusion of Latino minorities in the New York artistic environment, such as Teatro Orilla, Teatro Pregones, Teatro Pobre de America, Duo Theater, INTAR, and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. In addition, Fragoso founded Teatro Guazabara, a theater company dedicated to promoting playwriting and performance amongst the Puerto Rican youth in New Jersey. Thus, while Puerto Ricans on the island are usually acquainted with his poetry, the Puerto Rican community in New York City knows Fragoso's work as a teatrero (theater-maker).While scholars such as Efrain Barradas and Carlos Rodriguez-Matos have previously written about the gay and nationalists aspects predominant in Fragoso's poetry, not much has been said about his plays. This is probably so because these works were never published and thus have not circulated since the time of his untimely death in 1982. Thought to suffer cancer at an advanced stage, it was later discovered that Victor Fragoso was one of the first people to die of AIDS.1 Since his departure, there has always been the fear of losing his work to the erosion of time. The efforts of people like Chiqui Vicioso, Efrain Barradas and Angel Antonio Ruiz to keep Victor's work alive has paid off. Recently, Ruben Rios Avila applauded the reappearance of Fragoso's Ser islas/Being Islands and El reino de la espiga under Editorial Erizo. Similarly, Ediciones Cielonaranja published the author's academic work on celebrated Dominican poet Pedro Mir. More importantly, last year, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies' Archives of the Diaspora received an extensive gift from the Fragoso family, mainly consisting of his unpublished works. It follows that Centro Press is now in plans to produce an anthology of Fragoso's "disappeared" plays.In preparation for such event, I have worked with the materials deposited at the Centro Archives in order to take a preliminary look at Fragoso's theater, aiming to make an initial recognition of recurring topics in his work for the stage, among them: 1) gender and its often violent implications for women, 2) homosexuality, and 3) life for Puerto Ricans in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s. This panoramic approach will hopefully provide a base for further individual research on each of his plays and will sketch out overarching connections throughout his highly understudied theater oeuvre.The Archives of the Diaspora currently holds eight of his previously unpublished theater pieces, amongst other materials. These are: "Not the Time to Stay" (undated), "Don't Get Nervous" (undated), "Newark, 1974" (1974), "Call My Number" (1977), "Santaclos in Boriken" (1979), "Undecided, from Cayey" (1979), "The Latino Era" (co-written with Dolores Prida) (1980), and "First Night Out: the Basic Training of a Bag Lady" (1981). In one way or another, each one of these provide us with insight of Fragoso's notions and/ or stands on gender, homosexuality, and the diasporic experience of Puerto Ricans in New York City at the time his work was staged. …