eatre, in the basest of meanings, contends with the issues of a particular group of people, such as Natives, gays and lesbians, minorities, and perhaps while Fefu and her Friends was not written with the intent of being performed a la Augusto Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed, the play does deal with a collective protagonist and their struggles: women. This paper intends to prove that Maria Irene Fornes has created a single protagonist on both these terms.In Julia, Maria Irene Fornes has created a literal protagonist. She arrives, in some kind of physical distress, in a wheelchair. Much mystery surrounds the condition of Julia, and her friends speculate and gossip about her physical and her mental/emotional condition. Cindy explains to Christina,He shot. Julia and the deer fell. The deer was dead... dying. Julia was unconscious... like the deer. He died and she didn't. I screamed for help and the hunter came and examined Julia. He said, "She is not hurt." Julia's forehead was bleeding. He said, "It is a surface wound. I didn't hurt her." I know it wasn't he who hurt her. It was someone else. He went for help and Julia started talking. She was delirious.--Apparently there was a spinal nerve injury. She hit her head and she suffered a concussion. She blanks out and that is caused by the blow on the head. It's a scar on the brain. It's called the petit mal. (Fornes, p.17)It is quickly disclosed that Julia feels she is "persecuted" (Fornes, p. 18). We see physical evidence of her supposed physical and mental distress when Julia seems to go into a trance, looking blank and motionless (p.22) and whimpers strangely. However, Julia does not speak of her own distress and agony until she is alone and hallucinates. She speaks of persecution in relation to her agony. She believes she is being judged. She says, "They clubbed me. They broke my head. They broke my will." (Fornes, p. 33) Julia speaks of being punished "because [she] was getting to...
