Towards a theatrical poetry by Jesús González Dávila

Antonio Escobar

CONACULTA / INBA-CITRU
México, 2010
397 p.

On Jesús González Dávila —whom Antonio Escobar notes along with Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda and Sabina Berman, as one of the most representative authors of the playwriting that consolidated itself during the 80’s—, this study intends to “compile the constant writings of the davilian work with the purpose of reaching a conclusion on why there is a proposal to call the formal features and content components of Dávila’s playwriting a poetic of failure”. The plays selected were staged in Mexico City and exemplify several moments or stages of his trajectory as a dramatic writer: from the texts written between 1970 and 1983, in which he displays a writing with true self reliance and in which the main characters are children (The Toy Factory, The Real Caripocápote Bird, Yellow Ball Pole, Bandit’s Night); covering also the plays in which he “consolidates as a playwright with a long winded project, diversifying syntactical construction and the procedures constituting intrigue”, where social failure is seen through the squalor of adult characters (the trilogy made up of Blackberry Cake, Girl of the Soul and The Garden of Delights, as well as the play From the Street, written between 1982 and 1984). After a time in which he attempts a minimal or chamber theater (Chronicle of a Breakfast, The Same Day at Night, Amsterdam Boulevard and Basements); and a parentheses in his urban theater, with topics and situations created by the playwriting of the north of the country (Unfortunates, The Virgin’s Pearls, The Devil’s Heel); until a final stage with texts still not staged, whose “content and expression are somehow a condensation of his work, with an absolute disappointment and pessimism, always with the imprint of failure and alienation” (They Are Loves [1998], Who Dances Mambo [1989] and Winter’s Party [2000]). A chronology and the registers “Play Staged by Jesús González Dávila” and “Jesús González Dávila as an Actor” are included.