Rodolfo Usigli

Rodolfo Usigli Wainer (Mexico City, November 17, 1905-Mexico City, June 18, 1979) was a Mexican poet, playwright, writer, and diplomat. He is considered the father of modern Mexican theater.

Among his theatrical works, the following stand out: El Gesticulador, written in 1938, in which he makes a conscientious criticism of the Mexican revolutionary regime of that time and which was censored by the government. On the other hand, there is the Coronas trilogy, whose works were described by Usigli as anti-historical, and which is made up of Corona de sombra, written in 1943, where The figure of Charlotte of Belgium, wife of Maximilian of Habsburg, during and after the Second Empire in Mexico stands out; Crown of Fire from 1960, about the last confrontation between Cuahutémoc and Hernán Cortés; and Corona de Luz from 1963, the latter about the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the possibility of the fabrication of a miracle by the Spanish.

Biography

Son of an Italian father born in Alexandria, Alberto Usigli, and an Austro-Hungarian mother, Carlota Wainer. His father died when he was a child, so he was raised by his mother, with great economic deprivations, together with his three older brothers: Ana, Aída and Alberto. In his early childhood he had severe squint problems that left a deep mark on him, since his eyesight was never normal.

All his childhood, up to the age of 12, he did puppet theater and, on occasion, buys a folding theater that promises to pay with the proceeds of its performances, but ends up being seized. He memorized the seven acts of Don Juan Tenorio and passages from zarzuelas, operettas and melodramas that he had seen performed at the old Hidalgo Theater. In 1916 or 1917, he made his debut as an extra at the old Teatro Colón. He has to drop out of school and goes to work in an office, where he carried out his orders on foot to save the money allocated for his trips and to be able to buy books, in addition to improvising dialogues between colored pencils or between the fingers of his hands.

In 1922 and 1923, she studied at the Popular Night Music and Declamation School, where he learned to recite and performed some farces. In 1924, he works as a chronicler and theater interviewer in the magazine El Sábado , which later changes its name to El Tuesday , while he dreams of being a novelist. His first attempt arose in childhood with a novel titled A teacher , which was lost and which was dedicated to his fifth-year primary school teacher, Usigli himself said:

"But I wanted to write novels, and I went so far in my ambition that I threw more than a year and a half in two that, with good sense, I burned later. I mean with this, to put a limit to so much prolixity, that while I lived physically within the theaters, intellectually and emotionally lived outside the theater. The key reason is perhaps the simplicity that there was no stage in Mexico, in struggle, capable of moving and exalting me. "

It is in 1925 when he thinks about being a playwright, thanks to a meeting with a friend from his childhood, who reminds him of his interest in theater as a child. In that same year he attended the Alliance Française, where the author assures that he learns French by reading plays in that language. It was then that in 1930, he wrote his first play entitled The Apostle , which he published and presented the following year without being able to produce it.

In 1935, he obtained a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation to study playwriting with Xavier Villaurrutia at Yale University. In 1938 he was director of the SEP Radiophonic Theater. That same year he finished writing El Gesticulador and premiered Women don't make miracles . In 1940, he started and failed Teatro de Media Noche, dedicated to Mexican theater. That same year, he married Josefina Martínez Obscura (known as Josette) with whom he had a daughter and to whom he dedicated the first edition of Corona de sombra, published in 1943. The following year, in 1944, he divorced her and entered the diplomatic corps as second secretary of the Mexican Embassy in Paris, until 1946. During his stay in Paris, he managed to meet with Jean Cocteau, Henri-René Lenormand, Jean Anouilh and George Bernard Shaw, for whom he feels deep admiration and respect.

He returned to Mexico and in 1947 premiered nine years after he wrote El Gesticulador at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, causing a great political and critical scandal. That same year he premiered Corona de sombra under his own direction, but with little success. In 1948, he married Argentina Casas Olloqui for the second time, with whom he has three children, ending the marriage in 1963. In 1949 and 1950 he was a Mexican delegate at the Cannes Film Festival and in 1950 at the Belgian, Czechoslovakian and Venice film festivals..

He is sent to Lebanon as minister plenipotentiary from 1956 to 1959 and appointed ambassador to the same country from 1959 to 1962. From 1962 to 1971, he is appointed ambassador to Norway. In 1970 he received the Premio América, and the National Prize for Letters in 1972. He published under his care the first three volumes of his Complete Theater in 1963, 1966 and 1979 respectively. He died in Mexico City on June 18, 1979 and his remains lie in the Mausoleos del Ángel pantheon. Before dying, Usigli asked that his epitaph be:

Here he lies and waits

R.U.

Citizen of the Theatre

Guillermo Schmidhuber comments that Usigli's tomb lacks an epitaph, because in the pantheon where it is found, only written names and dates are allowed.

About his work

Rodolfo Usigli was a tetrageneric writer, he is considered the founder of the Mexican Theater and one of the literary creators of the Mexican identity consciousness. As a playwright he transcended both in his country and in other Latin American countries: El gesticulador is one of the first Latin American tragedies. His dramatic work has clouded his narrative and essay production. Essay of a Crime is the first urban novel from Mexico City. As an essayist he presented his ideas with a vocation for style; These texts correspond to the ideas revealed in his dramaturgy: anti-history, the profile of the Mexican and his omnipresent hypocrisy, and multiple texts on the history of theater in Mexico.

He was the first Spanish-American playwright to write a treatise on playwriting: Itinerary of the dramatic author. He did not belong to the Contemporaries, but the quality of his poetry is comparable to that written by this famous group; which is primarily due to the very personal nature of his poetic voice, especially when he celebrates old age. He was one of the Mexicans with the greatest sense of universality. He was a truth-seeking writer. A citizen of the Theater.

As for his poetic works, Desperate Conversation stands out. His teaching work was reflected in the courses he taught at the UNAM, among them the "Analysis of the theatrical text" in 1941 and being one of the founders of what is today the Bachelor of Dramatic Literature and Theater of that house of studies, as well as his attempt to form the New World Theater School which he undertook in 1948.

He was in contact with great literary figures of his time, such as José Vasconcelos and Alfonso Reyes.

Work

Essays

• Mexico in the theater (1932)
• Theater paths in Mexico (1933)
• Theatre anatomy (Written in 1939, published until 1967)
• Itinerary of the dramatic author (1940)
• Juan Ruiz de Alarcón in time (1967)
• Ideas about theatre (1968)
• Picture and prism of Mexico (1972)

Theater

• The Apostle (1931)
• False drama (1932)
• Stage night (1933-1935)
• The last door (1934-1936)
• The President and the ideal (1935)
• State of secret (1935)
• Alcestes (1936)
• The child and the fog (1936)
• While we love (1937-1948)
• Medium tone (1937)
• Another spring (1937-1938)
• Waters stuck (1938) (Dedicated to Dolores del Río)
• The gesticulator (1938)
• The woman does not perform miracles (1938)
• The critique of "Women does not perform miracles" (1939)
• Day dream (1940)
• Vacation I (1940)
• Family dinner at home (1942)
• Shadow crown (1943)
• God, Batidillo and the woman (1943)
• Vacation II (1945-1951)
• The farewell function (1949) (Written for Virginia Fábregas)
• Mothers (Mothers and children) (1949-1960)
• Fugitives (1950)
• The Great Circus of the World (1950-1968)
• Jano is a girl (1952)
• One day of these... (1953)
• The exhibition (1955-1959)
• The diadem (1960)
• Crown of fire (1960)
• A ship loaded with... (o) Last night on board(1961)
• The will and the widower
• The meeting (1963)
• Crown of light (1963)
• Letter of love
• The Flores case (1968)
• The old
• Good morning, Mr. President! (1972)

Prologues, epilogues and other texts about his theater

• "Three comedies and one piece to tempts"
• "Small note Alcestes"
• "A shavian comedy. Stage night"

• "Secrecy state.
• "Before it The last door"
• "The child and the fog. News"
• "Half a tone. Speech for a realistic theater"
• "While we love and Waters stuck. Brief news"
• "Epilogue on Mexican hypocrisy"
• Twelve notes.
• "Rehearsal on the Presentness of Drama Poetry"
• "The case of The gesticulator"
• "Close kit on The gesticulator"
• "Breve news about The gesticulator"
• "The woman does not perform miracles. A protest against usiglian comedy"
• "Notice on Day dream"
• "On purpose of Vacation I and Vacation II and other purposes and purposes"
• "Introduction to Family dinner at home"
• "Shadow crown. Prologue after the work"
• "God, drummer and womanConfidential report"
• "Gaceta on The farewell function"
• The Great Theater of the New World"
• "Propologist The Great Circus of the World"
• "Jano is a girl. Prologue"
• "Addenda after the premiere"
• "Fifty rendezvous on Jano is a girl"
• "One day of these... Prologue"
• "Mothers (o) Mothers and children). Prologue or the inutility of the prologues"
• "Notes to Crown of fire"
• "First Prologue" Crown of light)
• "Second prologue, in front of history" Crown of light)
• "Analysis, examination and trial Good morning, Mr. President!"

Narrative

• Trial of a crime (1944)
• Obliteration (1973)

Poetry

• Desperate conversation (1938)
• Sonnets of time and death (1954)
• Time and memory in desperate conversation (1981) (This publication includes a prologue by José Emilio Pacheco)

Memories

• Voices. Journal of work (1932-1933) (1967)
• Conversations and meetings (1974)