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 from Harvard 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 the Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes was welcomed by the theater-going public, but was met with hostility by the Mexican government. At issue was the play's declaration of the death of the Mexican Revolution in its institutionalization in the Partido 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