Legit vet Diaz dies

Dramatist wrote more than 90 plays

By CHARLES NEWBERY

Argentine-Chilean dramatist Jorge Diaz, who spent most of his career in Chile and Spain, died March 12 of cancer of the esophagus in Santiago. He was 77.

Born in Rosario, Argentina to Spanish immigrants, Diaz as a young architect made his start in the 1950s legit movement in Chile, first as a scenery designer and later a dramatist and occasionally an actor with the Ictus theater group.

He went on to write more than 90 plays including "El cepillo de dientes" and "El velero en la botella," plus another 40 productions for children and scripts for radio and TV. Of his plays, many of which were political and social satires tvhat earned comparisons to those of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, the last to make the stage was "El desvario" in 2006.

He lived in Spain between 1965 and 1994, creating plays like "El pirata de hojalata" and "La barraca de Jipi-Japa."