- El gesticulador
"El gesticulador" ("The Impostor") is a 1938 play by Mexican dramatist
Rodolfo Usigli .Plot
The protagonist, César Rubio, is an unemployed professor who, in the aftermath of the
Mexican Revolution , settles with his family in a small town in the north of Mexico. There, a professor fromHarvard University confuses him for a missing revolutionary hero with the same name. Rubio claims to be the deceased hero, telling the professor that, disillusioned with the course of the Revolution, he had embraced anonymity until thirty years thereafter. The story is published in the "New York Times ", and Rubio comes to the attention of his compatriots, receiving accolades and fielding offers to run for the governorship of his state against a corrupt Revolutionary general. Rubio loses himself in his new identity, viewing it as an opportunity to renew the promise of the Revolution.Controversy
The play was daring for its time in that it used the true language of contemporary politics, a first for
Mexican literature .Krauze, 526] Originally published in the literary review "El hijo pródigo" in 1938, the play was not staged until 1947. Its debut in theMexico City 'sPalacio de Bellas Artes was welcomed by the theater-going public, but was met with hostility by theMexican government . At issue was the play's declaration of the death of the Mexican Revolution in its institutionalization in thePartido Revolucionario Institucional .The government cancelled several performances, and writers were hired to severely criticize the performances that were allowed to go on. The work thus became the only play in Mexican history to be censored by the government.
Citations
References
*cite book
last = Krauze
first = Enrique
authorlink = Enrique Krauze
coauthors = Hank Heifetz
title = Mexico: A Biography of Power
publisher = Harper Collins
date = 1997
location = New York
pages =
url =
doi =
id =
isbn =0060929170
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