Obituary of Martha Taliaferro Halsey

Martha T. Halsey, 87, of State College, died April 7, 2020 at Foxdale Village. Born May 5, 1932, in Richmond, VA, she was the daughter of the late Martha and James D. Halsey. She graduated from Goucher College in 1954, having been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After receiving a masters degree from the State University of Iowa in 1956 and a doctorate from the Ohio State University in 1964, she began teaching at Penn State. In 1995 she retired, after thirty years of service, with the rank of Professor Emerita of Spanish. The only hiatus was in 1983, when she was named Olive B. O'Connor Professor of Literature at Colgate University. Halsey was known nationally and internationally for her research on contemporary Spanish theater. Beginning in 1973 with a pioneering book on Antonio Buero Vallejo, the most revered playwright of Spain's post-Civil War period, she published over 100 articles, notes, and reviews on the theater of Buero Vallejo and of Spain's Realistic Generation of the 1960's, which was known for its critical vision. Among the top critics in her field, Halsey wrote or edited eight books, concluding with From Dictatorship to Democracy: The Recent Plays of Buero Vallejo, 1994, which focused on the recurrent symbols of the prison and the labyrinth and dialectic of freedom. Halsey's commitment to Spanish drama took other forms. In 1980 she organized an international conference featuring the English-language premier of The Inmates of the Convent of Saint Mary Egyptian by Andalusian playwright José Martín Recuerda. Another international conference she directed at Penn State in 1997 featured presentations by several playwrights from Spain as well as 65 critics from both sides of the Atlantic and performances of three plays by the admired young author, Paloma Pedrero. She also organized other lectures and a symposium, in 1993, on the works of Federico García Lorca. From 1992 to 1998 she edited Estreno, a scholarly journal of contemporary Spanish theatre, at Penn State, publishing special issues on the drama of Catalonia and on women playwrights. In 1992 she was awarded grants from Spain's Ministry of Culture to edit and publish a collection of plays in English translation entitled Estreno Contemporary Spanish Plays. She also served on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals published in the U.S. and Europe. In 1995 she was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Hispanic Society of America. That same year a book of testimonies by Spanish playwrights, critics from the U.S. and Spain, and the General Society of Authors of Spain was published to honor her on the occasion of her retirement from teaching. In 1998 another tribute by the editorial board with which she had worked was published in Estreno. She is included in the Marquis Who's Who in America, 200, Who's Who of American Women, 1999-2000, and Who's Who in the World, 2001. She is survived by a brother, James D. Halsey, of McLean, VA, as well as several cousins. A service for Martha will be held privately. Arrangements are under the care of Koch Funeral Home, State College. Online condolences and signing of the guestbook may be made at kochfuneralhome.com.