Rodolfo Usigli

{{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = | honorific_suffix = | image = 018572-012 ENTREGA DE PRENSA A RODOLFO USIGLI POR SUS 50 AÑOS DE ESCRITOR EN EL MONUMENTO A JUVENTINO ROSAS EN CHAPULTEPEC SEPTIEMBRE 25 1977 (45398998854) (cropped).jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | landscape =  | alt =  | caption = Rodolfo Usigli receiving a press recognition in 1977 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{Birth date|1905|11|17}}. | birth_place = Mexico City | death_date = {{Death date and age|1979|06|18|1905|11|17}} | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Playwright, poet, novelist | language = | nationality =  | citizenship =  | education =  | alma_mater =  | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = | notable_works = El gesticulador | spouse =  | partner =  | children = | relatives = | awards = National Prize for Arts | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | signature_type = | years_active = | module = | website =  | portaldisp =  }} '''Rodolfo Usigli Wainer''' (November 17, 1905 – June 18, 1979) was a Mexican playwright, essayist, and diplomat.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://spec.lib.miamioh.edu/home/usigli/|title=Rodolfo Usigli Archive|website=Walter Havighurst Special Collections & University Archives|access-date=2020-04-22}}</ref> He has been called "the father of Mexican theater"<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Mattrella|first=Anne Laura|title=Critical Survey of Drama|publisher=Salem Press|year=2017|edition=3rd|location=Pasadena, CA|pages=3810–3815|chapter=Usigli, Rodolpho}}</ref> and "playwright of the Mexican Revolution."{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}} In recognition of his work to articulate a national identity for Mexican theater, he was award the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes (Mexican National Prize for Arts and Sciences) in 1972.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.uv.mx/investigacion/convocatorias/premio-nacional-de-ciencias-y-artes-70-anos/|title=Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes ~ 70 AÑOS ~ – Dirección General de Investigaciones|website=www.uv.mx|access-date=2020-04-23}}</ref>

==Biography== Usigli was born to an Italian father and a Polish mother in Mexico City. In his early childhood, he enjoyed many plays to which his parents took him. His father aspired for him to go to music school, and Usigli spent a year in the National Conservatory of Music before deciding that his real passion was theater. He studied drama at the Yale School of Drama from 1935-1936 on a Rockefeller scholarship, later becoming a professor and diplomat. During his time as a diplomat in 1945, he met George Bernard Shaw in London.<ref name="Rodolfo Usigli and George Bernard Shaw">{{cite web|title=Rodolfo Usigli and George Bernard Shaw Finding Aid|url=http://spec.lib.miamioh.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Usigli-Shaw-Finding-Aid-Revised-7-15-11.pdf|access-date=20 February 2014}}</ref> After returning to Mexico from the U.S., he established the Midnight Theater and also became a member of the literary circle that formed around the journal ''Contemporary''.<ref name="Rodolfo Usigli">{{cite web|title=Rodolfo Usigli|url=http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/u/usigli.htm|publisher=Biographies & Lives|access-date=12 March 2013}}</ref> During the 1930s, he directed radio dramas.

== Theatre == Usigli’s theatre focuses largely the history of Mexico and satirizing his contemporary Mexican society,<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|3811}} and how the Mexican middle classes were betrayed, politically and socially, by the Mexican revolution.<ref name=":3" />{{Rp|307}} His plays reflect a sense of the hypocrisies of life after the revolution, both criticizing society and offering models to emulate.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|3811}} He called for a national theater movement that would reflect the truth of the Mexican experience and express the Mexican spirit.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|3811}}<ref name=":3" />{{Rp|308}}

He is perhaps best known for his 1938 play ''El gesticulador'' (''The Imposter''), which critiqued social issues ravaging Mexico, such as misuse of power that the bureaucracy had gotten from the Revolution of 1910. The play was censored by the Mexican government and banned, raising Usigli's reputation.<ref name="Rodolfo Usigli" />

In 1942, Usigli published another work of scathing quality. In ''Family Dinner at Home'', his intended targets were the apex strata of the Mexican social structure. Usigli experimented with crime fiction in the novel, ''Ensayo de un crimen'' (''Rehearsal for a Crime''), which in 1955 was adapted into a film, ''The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz'', by Luis Buñuel. Usigli also wrote several essays on history, art, and theater. He was also an occasional poet, writing modest but interesting poems.<ref name="Rodolfo Usigli"/>

The award-winning Usigli believed the objective of theatre was to tell the truth about society.{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}} He was known for his strong representation of women in plays.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Layera|first=Ramón|date=2006|title=Rodolfo Usigli Centennial: An Interdisciplinary Commemoration|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/latin_american_theatre_review/v040/40.1.layera01.html|journal=Latin American Theatre Review|language=en|volume=40|issue=1|pages=179–182|doi=10.1353/ltr.2006.0046|s2cid=190738005|issn=2161-0576}}</ref>{{Rp|181–182}}

Usigli designed strong female characters in several of his plays. Two of Usigli's protégées, Rosario Castellanos and Luisa Josefina Hernández, became important female voices on the Mexican stage. He was also a strong influence on his pupil Jorge Ibargüengoitia and on Josefina Niggli.{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}}

== Archive == The [http://spec.lib.miamioh.edu/home/usigli/ Rodolfo Usigli Archive] in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections at Miami University of Ohio is a repository of Usigli's papers. The archive's website describes it as "the definitive research collection relating to Usigli's life and career, including correspondence, both manuscript and typed drafts of original plays and translations of works by other artists, personal, theatrical, and diplomatic photographs, essays, books, playbills, posters, theses written about Usigli, awards, newspaper and magazine articles, memorabilia, and ephemera."<ref name=":0" />

== Selected works ==

=== Plays ===

* ''Tres comedias impolíticas'' (''Three Impolitic Comedies''), 1935<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Howatt|first=Consuelo|date=1950|title=Rodolfo Usigli|journal=Books Abroad|volume=24|issue=2|pages=127–130|doi=10.2307/40089077|jstor=40089077|issn=0006-7431}}</ref> *''El niño y la niebla (The Boy and the Mist)'', 1936 *''Otra primavera'' (''Another Spring'')<ref name=":1" /> *''Medio tono'' (''Middle Class'')<ref name=":1" /> *''Mientras amemos ''(''As Long as We Love''), begun 1937-38, completed 1948<ref name=":3" /> * ''El gesticulador'' (''The Imposter''), 1938<ref name=":1" /> * ''La familia cena en casa'' (''Family Dinner at Home''), 1942<ref name=":1" /> * ''Vacaciones (Holidays)''<ref name=":1" /> * ''La mujer no hace milagros'' (''The Woman Does Not Work Miracles'')<ref name=":1" /> *''La función de la despedida'', 1949<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Ragle|first=Gordon|date=May 1963|title=Rodolfo Usigli and His Mexican Scene|journal=Hispania|volume=46|issue=2|pages=307–311|doi=10.2307/336998|jstor=336998}}</ref> *''Los fugitivos'', produced 1950, published 1951<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Scott|first=Wilder P.|date=November 1974|title=The Genesis and Development of a Female Character in Two Plays of Rodolfo Usigli|journal=South Atlantic Bulletin|volume=39|issue=4|pages=31–37|doi=10.2307/3198227|jstor=3198227}}</ref> *''Jano es una muchacha'', 1952<ref name=":3" /> *''Las madres'', 1960 * The Corona Trilogy: ** ''Corona de sombra'' (''Crown of Shadow''), 1943<ref name=":1" /> ** ''Corona de Fuego'' (''Crown of Fire''), 1960<ref name=":1" /> ** ''Corona de Luz'' (''Crown of Light''), 1963<ref name=":1" />

=== Poetry ===

* "''Conversación desesperada'' ("Desperate Conversation"), 1938<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|title=Conversación desesperada|date=1938|publisher=E. Nandino|location=México|language=es|oclc=32326616}}</ref> *"''Sonetos del tiempo y de la muerte''" ("Sonnets of Time and Death"), 1954<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|title=Sonetos del tiempo y de la muerte|date=1954|publisher=s.n.|location=México|language=es|oclc=651448289}}</ref> * "''Tiempo y memoria en conversación desesperada''", 1981<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Usigli|first1=Rodolfo|title=Tiempo y memoria en conversación desesperada: poesía 1923-1974|last2=Pacheco|first2=José Emilio|date=1981|publisher=Universidad nacional autónoma de México, Departamento de humanidades|location=México|language=es|oclc=462067844}}</ref>

=== Novels ===

* ''Ensayo de un crimen'' (''Rehearsal for a Crime''), 1944<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|title=Ensayo de un crimen; novela.|date=1944|publisher=Editorial America|location=Mexico|language=es|oclc=1343048}}</ref> *''Obliteracion'' (''Obliteration'') (1973)

=== Nonfiction ===

* ''México en el teatro'' (''Mexico in Theatre''), 1932<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|title=México en el teatro|publisher=Impr. mundial|year=1932|location=México|language=es|oclc=250649306}}</ref> * ''Caminos del teatro en México'' (''Paths of the Theatre in Mexico''), 1933<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|title=Caminos del teatro en México.|date=1933|publisher=Imprenta de la Secretaría de relaciones exteriores|location=México|language=es|oclc=9134367}}</ref> * ''Anatomía del teatro'' (''Anatomy of Theatre''), written 1939, published 1967 * ''Itinerario del autor dramático'' (''Itinerary of a Dramatist''), 1940<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BO8SAAAAYAAJ|title=Itinerario del autor dramático.|date=1940|publisher=La Casa de España en México|location=México|language=es|oclc=590192018}}</ref> * ''Juan Ruiz de Alarcón en el tiempo,'' 1967 * ''Ideas sobre el teatro'' (''Ideas about the Theatre''), 1968 * ''Imagen y prisma de México'' (1972)

=== Memoirs ===

* ''Conversaciónes y encuentros'' (''Conversations and Encounters''), 1974<ref>{{Cite book|last=Usigli|first=Rodolfo|title=Conversaciones y encuentros|date=1974|location=México; Ed. Novaro|language=es|oclc=255795431}}</ref> ** translated into English in a critical edition as ''You Have Nothing to Learn from Me: A Literary Relationship Between George Bernard Shaw and Rodolfo Usigli'', 2011<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Layera|first1=Ramón|title=You have nothing to learn from me: a literary relationship between George Bernard Shaw & Rodolfo Usigli|last2=Gibson|first2=Katie|last3=Powell|first3=Kerry|last4=Walter Havighurst Special Collections Library (Miami University)|publisher=Miami University Libraries|year=2011|isbn=978-0-615-50861-0|location=Oxford, OH|language=en|oclc=755918142}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Beltrán|first=Edith|date=2013|title=You Have Nothing to Learn from Me: A Literary Relationship Between George Bernard Shaw and Rodolfo Usigli by Ramón Layera and Katie Gibson|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/latin_american_theatre_review/v047/47.1.beltran.html|journal=Latin American Theatre Review|language=en|volume=47|issue=1|pages=190–192|doi=10.1353/ltr.2013.0044|s2cid=191794927|issn=2161-0576|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==External links== {{Portal|Mexico|Novels|Theatre}} *[http://usigli.lib.miamioh.edu/ Rodolfo Usigli website at Miami University of Ohio] *[http://spec.lib.miamioh.edu/home/usigli/ The Rodolfo Usigli Archive in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections at Miami University of Ohio] *[http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/buscador/?q=rodolfo+usigli/ Rodolfo Usigli website at biblioteca Cervantes Virtual]

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Usigli, Rodolfo}} Category:1905 births Category:1979 deaths Category:Mexican crime fiction writers Category:Mexican people of Italian descent Category:Mexican people of Polish descent Category:Mexican dramatists and playwrights Category:Writers from Mexico City Category:David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Category:Occasional poets Category:National Prize for Arts and Sciences (Mexico)