History of the main theater of Mexico

Manuel Mañón

Prologue: José Sánchez Azcona

CONACULTA / INBA
México, 2009
470 p.

In the framework of the celebrations of the bicentennial anniversary of the independence of Mexico and the 75th anniversary of the Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes), this facsimile re-issue of History of the Main Theater of Mexico, by Manuel Mañón (1884-1942), makes available to researchers and academics of today an impressive follow-up of the shows that throughout its almost two centuries of existence, were presented in the Main Theater of Mexico City (Teatro Principal de la Ciudad de México). Opened in 1753 as the New Coliseum by the viceroy Revillagigedo; it experiences a rebirth in 1826, with the new name of the Main Theater. The stage through which the most important national and international artists of the age paraded was reduced to rubble by a fire in 1931. When the Grand National Theater disappeared due to its demolition in 1901, the Main Theater became the first theater of the capital. Even the Arbeu and the Renaissance Theaters, with their situation, conditions or traditions, could not dispute the supremacy of the ancient viceroy coliseum, and it was under those circumstances —Mañón tells us— that the Main Theater saw the dawn of the new century. The chronicler reviews files and periodical publication logs, gathers and transliterates documents (standards, budgets, criticisms, newspaper and magazine articles, manifestos, letters, scripts, programs, posters), testimonials, and tells anecdotes. Armed with his own memories and experiences as an author and theater adapter of the lyrical genre, he creates a source of reference that goes beyond the monograph of theater building. He provides us with a memoir on the social and theatrical life in Mexico during the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th. The chapters, chronologically ordered, are articulated in three sections: The first describes general subjects on life in the theater throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The second is devoted to the 19th century and the third and last to the 20th century. All of them illustrated with a bountiful iconography with pictures of personalities of the time (public personalities, entrepreneurs, authors, actors, musicians), still shots of the daily life in significant places and events, casts and companies of the shows performed in “the most popular of our metropolitan theaters”, as Juan Sánchez Azcona rates the Main Theater in his prologue to the edition of 1932, also known as Capital of Performance.