| Popis: |
This project examines the life, career, and controversies surrounding Mexican playwright Rodolfo Usigli and his play El gesticulador, a tragicomedy that satirized the hypocrisies of rule in Mexico following the revolution of 1910. Usigli emerged as one of the leading, if controversial, voices within Mexican theater during the 1930s and 1940s, writing politically critical plays based in his particular vision for a national theater tradition in Mexico. The height of the playwright’s dramaturgical output corresponded with an elite class in the process of consolidating an institutionalized, “official” culture, homogenized revolutionary history, and political system dominated by an effectively single-party state. Censored for almost a decade, Usigli’s El gesticulador premiered on the stage of Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes under high praise and intense scandal, both reflecting and contributing to renewed debates concerning Mexico’s political system, freedom of expression, and the changing “institutional” revolution. Following the play’s staging, Usigli would ultimately go on to act as a coopted intellectual in the service of the state. Thus, I track Usigli’s evolution alongside that of the single-party state, arguing that the playwright acts as an insightful example of the power dynamics informing the relationships between political and cultural elites in postrevolutionary Mexico. |
