Salom, Jaime

b. 1925, Barcelona

   Writer

   The most successful Catalan playwright on the contemporary Madrid stage, he achieved his first hit in 1964 with the metatheatrical farce El baúl de los disfraces (The Trunk of Disguises). La casa de las Chivas (The House of the "Chivas") (1968), a moralistic view of the Spanish Civil War from behind Republican lines, broke box office records. More recently, he has taken liberal social stances and experimented with innovative theatrical structures. His revisionist drama on Bartolomé de las Casas, Una hoguera al amanecer (Bonfire at Dawn), was premièred in Mexico in 1991 and was performed in Washington, DC and in France during the 1992 Quinto Centenario.

   See also: performing arts; theatre

   PHYLLIS ZATLIN