"Reason Obscured is the first English-language translation of plays by renowned Argentinean dramatist Ricardo Monti. The annotated collection includes four full-length works, all written between 1970 and 2000. Graham-Jones's introductory study and bibliography of works by and about Monti also accompany the collection." "Monti's theater has been described as social spectacle. His plays mix allegory, tragedy, farce, and mystery play; they intermingle religious and mythological motifs, characters, and plots; and they cross and recross multiple historical and geographical zones through highly charged poetic language and imagery. The resulting body of work possesses a dynamic tension of powerful relevance to an English-speaking audience. Monti questions our shared Western cultural values as well as his native Argentina's national myths. His plays reject such totalizing systems as nationalism and ultimate truths. In his critique of the modern world's legacy, Monti revisits classical formulas and images (and even his own earlier texts) as he experiments with alternative structures built upon Western dramatic literature, language, and form. This unrelenting impulse to transform texts, genres, motifs, and histories has resulted in plays worthy of inclusion in the Western dramatic canon." "Both the introductory study and individual play annotations provide readers with valuable information that enriches an understanding of Monti's theater without detracting from each play's stageworthiness. Yet, ultimately, it is Monti's own great theatricality, his self-positioning within the larger Western cultural tradition while writing from a very local cultural condition of duress, and his overarching critique of modernity that contribute to making Reason Obscured indispensable reading for theater students, scholars, and practitioners."--BOOK JACKET.