La dramaturgia mexicana de los años 90 del siglo XX desde la perspectiva de la postmodernidad (review)

In her book, Elvira Popova tackles the impossible task of examining the 20^th century’s final decade of dramatic writing in Mexico. Actually, she does the only sensible thing, in that she greatly limits the authors and texts she examines. As she states at the beginning of the book, she focuses exclusively on five playwrights born in the 1960s (and 1970) who came into their own in the 1990s: Estela Leñero, Jaime Chabaud, Luis Mario Moncada, David Olguín, and Gerardo Mancebo. Furthermore, she limits her focus to 2–5 plays per playwright.

Overall, I find the book very valuable. When a researcher uses a filter such as postmodernism to focus on theatrical texts, the resultant study sometimes focuses more on the filter than on the texts. I am happy to report that such is NOT the case in Popova’s book. She uses postmodern concepts and terminology to bring light to the 16 texts she studies. More than anything else, she gives readers solid insights into the nature of these plays, their content, their technique, and the ideas they project. She argues, and then gives strong evidence from the plays, that these playwrights have the following general traits in their theatre: they focus on individuals rather than society as a whole, and these individuals usually find themselves bewildered by their surrounding world and incapable of establishing any stable identity; their work often plays with time and space, typically fragmenting it, sometimes making it repetitive, often presenting an upside-down world, often utilizing metatheatre, intertextuality, and blurring the line between reality (including history) and fiction; and the tone is invariably irreverent, heavy in parody, skilled in breaking free from prior tradition, and undermines any hope of establishing a canonical history.

The strength of Popova’s book is that she examines the 16 plays through these lenses, allowing readers to get to know the nature of each play better. The texts on which she focuses are: Habitación en blanco and Paisaje interior by Estela Leñero; Alicia detrás de la pantalla, Exhivisión, El motel de los destinos cruzados, Superhéroes de la aldea global, and Las historias que se cuentan los hermanos siameses by Luis Mario Moncada; La puerta del fondo, Bajo tierra, and Dolores o la felicidad by David Olguín; ¡Qué viva Cristo Rey!, Talk show, El ajedrecista, and Perder la cabeza by Jaime Chabaud; and Las tremendas aventuras de la Capitana Gazpacho and Mamagorka y su Playamo by Gerardo Mancebo del Castillo Trejo. A short section at the end of the book touches on the mark the dramaturgy of the studied generation has on the ensuing generation. This section does not claim to be exhaustive, but offers a glimpse into Mexican theatre during the decade of 2000 to 2010.

Although the book has indisputable merit, as I read it I wondered on what basis Popova decided to NOT include other plays from the same time period by the same authors, such as Opción multiple or Adictos anónimos by Luis Mario Moncada, ¡Baje la voz! or Tempranito y en ayunos by Jaime Chabaud, or Instantáneas by Estela Leñero. Such plays with which I am familiar would have worked beautifully in her analysis, giving further evidence to the tendencies she points out. And what about the plays of other playwrights of the same generation (at least in the terms Popova stated: born in the 1960s, came into their own in the 1990s) such as Hugo Salcedo, Jorge Celaya, and Hernán Galindo, to mention a few? Ironically, although her book was published in Nuevo León, her book seems very centered on Mexico City, as all five of the playwrights she studies lived and worked in Mexico City during the decade in question. Another unanswered doubt has to do with actual performance—Popova...