Politics of Mexican Revolution as a Spiral of Gestures in Usigli’s Theatre

Abstract

This article focuses in the play El gesticulador. Pieza para demagogos en tres actos, that was written by Rodolfo Usigli in 1938, and published six years later; however, this play was not stage until 1947 in a short run interrupted by the State censorship. Here I consider that the anecdotic dimension of censorship must be read in its political dimension, which connects with the articulations of a spiral of gestures expressed in the play as part of national politics. Thanks to its inner elements, Usigli’s discourse will be shown as a discussion about what is history and how to produce history in a fashion that values its literary-narrative or its fictional dimension, following Peter Burke and the contributions of New Historicism. In addition, this paper will address the scope of postmodernism and poststructuralism and its consideration of the end of the grand narratives, including that of History. With all these elements in consideration, the hypothesis of this article states that Usigli links national history, politics and theatre due to their common elements, which are evidenced in the play as fictional artifacts. That fictional device is exposed as a gestural machine that acts as antecedent, producer and destroyer of truth, and implies the elimination of any chance for social evolution.