Overlapping spaces and identities in Quiara Alegría Hudes's *Water by the Spoonful*: a metatheatrical approach

The article examines how Quiara Alegría Hudes identifies character in terms of space, interweaving ordinary physical space with metaspaces (virtual and metaphysical) to shape human attitude and behavior in Water by the Spoonful. It asks: how do stage space, scenery, and performance demonstrate that character identities and responses to socio-moral issues change with the space they occupy (physical vs metaspace)? How do family, culture, diaspora, and war trauma in materialized space produce psychological disorder and affect attitudes and behaviors? How have Hudes’s personal diasporic experiences and cultural traditions fostered her ideology and dramaturgy? The paper aims to untangle Hudes’s experimentation with meta identities and multi-layered spaces to address self-awareness, family, society, and culture in diaspora, emphasizing the psychologically muddling feelings of loneliness, nostalgia, and homesickness within familial breakups, cultural disorientation, and trauma, and grounding Hudes’s drama in her personal experiences and cultural beliefs.

The study situates Water by the Spoonful within metatheatrical theory. Drawing on Lionel Abel’s Metatheatre (1963), metatheatre is framed as a play-within-a-play form with self-referring characters, overlapping illusion and reality, and an essential fantastic element. Although Hudes’s play lacks a literal play-within-a-play, Andrés Pérez-Simón’s notion of metatheatricality through “laying bare of the artistic devices” (2011) applies: Hudes joins and overlaps different settings on the same stage, eliminating borders and alienating the audience to enable comparative viewing of characters’ attitudes and psychological shifts. William Egginton’s premise that theatre is intrinsically metatheatrical, containing a real and an imaginary space that mirror or complement each other (2003), is extended: in Hudes, real, virtual, and metaphysical spaces are distinct yet complementary tableaux unified by a single artistic point of view (Barthes, 1977). The article also engages Southern American/Latin American magical realism influences and Puerto Rican cultural-religious frames (e.g., Taino espiritismo; Lucumí/Yoruba concepts like Ashe) as interpretive lenses for the metaphysical elements and character transformations.

The article employs an analytical, performative approach grounded in metatheatre to examine Water by the Spoonful’s staging, set design, and spatial dramaturgy. Rather than a conventional thematic reading, it analyzes how split and intersecting sceneries and spaces (physical, virtual, metaphysical) shape character fabrication and audience reception. It reads Hudes’s flexible transference of action across spaces under one stage dome as metatheatrical device, including techniques such as: simultaneous split scenes; overlapping locations without explicit transitions; prevention of eye contact to heighten alienation; and use of musical cues (e.g., John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Ascension) to juxtapose actions. The analysis incorporates culturally rooted magical realism to interpret interactions between the living and the supernatural (ghosts, soul-body separation), and references to Afro-Caribbean/Yoruba-derived concepts (Ashe) to frame character imbalance and consequence. Contextual background from Hudes’s interviews and biographical influences within the Elliot Trilogy complements the performance-centered reading.

- Hudes constructs three intersecting realms—physical, virtual (cyberspace), and metaphysical—to define and modulate diasporic characters’ identities, attitudes, and behaviors. Characters often hold dual/triadic identities across spaces (e.g., real names vs screen handles; corporeal vs metaphysical presence). - Metatheatrical devices: Split scenes and overlapping settings on one stage eliminate borders between actions, forcing audience comparison/contrast; actors often avoid eye contact, enhancing alienation; sound design (Coltrane) cues parallel emotional arcs. The set explicitly “lays bare” devices: an array of mismatched chairs signify real-world locales; the online world is represented as an empty connective space (Hudes 2011, p. 13). - The play is not “about the internet/technology” per se but about family, home, communities, survival, and how people find kinship across spaces (Hudes/Young 2015). Virtual space functions as a social locus affecting real relationships. - Character-specific spatial identities and arcs: • Odessa/HAIKUMOM: In cyberspace, a responsible mentor managing a recovery forum; in real life, neglectful and isolated, having failed family duties; metaphysically, marked by homesickness and a liminal soul-body episode witnessed by Yaz. • Elliot: In real space, a charismatic veteran burdened by PTSD and painkiller misuse; metaphysically haunted by a ghost that the paper reinterprets as an embodiment of Elliot’s own past/addiction (supported by Odessa’s line, “If there’s spirits, they’re hiding inside you”); the haunting ceases upon his return to Puerto Rico, linking exorcism/salvation to homeland space. • Yaz/FREEDOM&NOISE: Skeptical of certain inherited rituals in real space, yet becomes the interim online forum leader; uniquely perceives Odessa’s soul-body separation, signaling spiritual attunement and a role transition to community caretaker (reincarnatory echo of Ginny). • Mays/Yoshiko Sakai/ORANGUTAN: Feels rootless in both American diaspora and virtual space; returns to Kushiro, Japan, to reclaim identity, reconnect with family/landscape, and realize purpose (teaching). Prefers “flesh and blood” connections over “ones and zeroes.” • Clayton Buddy Wilkie/CHUTES&LADDERS: Real space marked by racialized history, family estrangement, and a low-status job; virtual space substitutes missing family bonds; despite physical uniqueness and past addiction, he demonstrates resilience and faith; ultimately meets Mays in indigenous space (Kushiro) to seek renewal. • John/FOUNTAINHEAD: A white newcomer to the forum whose presence exposes class/race tensions; his arc includes caregiving to Odessa post-relapse and confronting his own addiction and marital fallout. - Cultural frameworks shape spatial meaning: Puerto Rican Taino espiritismo and broader Latin American magical realism authorize interactions with the dead (Elliot’s ghost encounters; Yaz witnessing Odessa’s soul). Yoruba/Lucumí-derived Ashe frames how imbalance through harmful actions (addiction, abandonment, war participation) manifests as misfortune, disease, and social disorder. - Homeland as transformative space: Puerto Rico functions as nostalgia/home/authenticity for the older generation (Ginny, Odessa) and as revelation/renewal for the younger (Yaz, Elliot). El Yunque’s waterfall becomes a liminal site where funerary ritual, revelation, and role transfer coincide; Elliot abandons pills and redirects his life; Yaz assumes maternal/community leadership and the forum mantle. - The online-offline tension: For Odessa, CHUTES&LADDERS, ORANGUTAN, and FOUNTAINHEAD, online community compensates for isolation but can displace real familial/cultural obligations; for Elliot and Yaz, real family/culture remain central, though Yaz ultimately bridges both spaces as caretaker. - The Elliot Trilogy context grounds themes of war’s subjective legacy, diaspora, and socio-economic struggle; Water by the Spoonful interlaces these through spatial dramaturgy rather than didactic political stance.

The findings address the core questions by demonstrating that Hudes uses space as a dramaturgical engine for character identity: shifts between physical, virtual, and metaphysical realms generate observable changes in attitudes and behaviors. Split staging and metatheatrical exposure of devices invite the audience to interrogate characters’ choices across spaces in real time. Familial rupture, diaspora, and war trauma are spatially mediated: virtual forums offer solace yet exacerbate real neglect (Odessa), while metaphysical encounters catalyze empathy and transformation (Elliot’s ghost, Yaz witnessing the soul-body limen). Hudes’s own diasporic experience and cultural inheritance (espiritismo, Ashe, ritual landscapes, music) inform the play’s spatial codes and the characters’ pathways to healing or relapse. The significance for theatre and diaspora studies lies in reframing identity as spatially contingent and performatively constructed, showing metatheatre not as mere reflexivity but as a practical means to stage intersecting realities where diasporic subjects negotiate belonging, responsibility, and renewal.

Hudes’s Water by the Spoonful distinguishes itself through metatheatrical manipulation of settings and the spatial construction of identity across three domains: physical, virtual, and metaphysical. Characters’ multiethnic identities are shown to be contingent on the spaces they inhabit: Odessa is at once failed mother in real life and mentor online; Elliot is a dutiful family man haunted metaphysically; Yaz bridges realms as community elder and forum guide; Mays and Clay find renewal in indigenous homelands. The play’s transformations stem less from ideological systems than from the omnipresence and agency of space itself, which modulates characters’ passions and choices. Homeland landscapes, ritual practices, and spiritual beliefs operate as catalysts for revelation, reconciliation, and role transfer across generations. Future research might compare Hudes’s spatial dramaturgy with other Latinx and diasporic playwrights, examine audience reception of split staging and alienation tactics, or trace how virtual communities are staged across contemporary theatre to negotiate identity and care.