Extract from Ariel Dorfman's 'Death and the Maiden'

Ariel Dorfman’s 1991 play Death and the Maiden is set in the present time in a country that ‘is probably Chile’ but ‘could be any country that has just departed from a dictatorship’. Taking place in a remote beach house primarily on a single night and day, the play follows the actions of Paulina, who has been tortured by the previous regime and whose husband Gerardo, a human rights lawyer, has just been appointed to head a truth commission established by the new transitional government.