The first book-length study of the role of farce in Spanish American theatre explores the intersection of politics and drama. Spanish American playwrights have realized that farce's ""lack of power"" and marginality can become a resourceful way to confront aggression and censorship, while rejecting the possibility of eventually becoming part of the oppressive center. This book underscores the tendency of Spanish American farce for self-parody, its capacity to uncover and also carry out a profound critique of their nations' artistic, social, and political rituals. To use and transgress farce simultaneously, as a considerable number of Spanish American playwrights do, is to recognize the reality and power, as well as the limits, of laughter.