SOURCE: "Xavier Villaurrutia and The Modern Mexican Theatre," in Modern Language Forum, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, December, 1954, pp. 108-14.

Xavier Villaurrutia appears in Mexican letters among the young men who formed the group known as "Contemporáneos," which soon became by its own efforts a literary generation.¹ A poet above all, Xavier Villaurrutia has not failed to utilize the other disciplines of letters, and he has demonstrated his ability and his technical strength in the theatre and in critical writing.²

According to Villaurrutia himself the most important mission of the "Contemporáneos" group was to put Mexico in touch with the universal. "We tried to make known the contemporary manifestations of art, to open the way for a knowledge of foreign literatures .. . It can be said that the most important group of modern painters was formed with us. On the other hand, we are the only ones who have occupied ourselves seriously with the most authentic modern theatre and with its diffusion and expression in Mexico."³ He goes on to say, "Some time ago we made attempts to make it known in the theatrical groups of Ulysses and Orientation, and we have also been occupied with the study of theatricaltechnique in the centers where it is best understood."⁴

Without realizing the potential dramatist within him, Villaurrutia had an irresistible affection for the theatre, in which he found one of his most intimate intellectual pleasures. He is the first Mexican translator of Luigi Pirandello, André Gide, Jean Giraudoux, writers more atune to his character among the modern playwrights, whom he has followed with avid curiosity.⁵ Writing in 1933, Villaurrutia considered Elmer L. Rice and Eugene O'Neill the best North American dramatists.

They are not the only ones, but they are already dedicated (to the theatre). Their plays are given in Europe and they are included with the best among the moderns. They are masters of a style because they have obtained, each in his own way, the exact and imperceptible accommodation of his own inner vision to the scenes, pictures and acts, in which lucidly and conscientiously, their poetical intentions, their intuition, and their ideas are objectified.⁶

Speaking of the theatre in Mexico, Villaurrutia says, "No literary form should be accepted in Mexico with greater attention than the drama. The theatre is not our strong point, and never has been." But he continues,

To write plays in a country such as ours, whose theatre and whose public only occasionally support works of good quality—is like constructing a building for the public, in one's bedroom. A classic spirit cannot accept this. If he has no public, he must work to form it. And what else were the experimental theatres of Ulysses and Orientation, but efforts to create a public, a new curiosity?⁷

According to Villaurrutia the bad habits and outmoded customs of the Spanish theatrical tradition of the nineteenth century weigh upon the companies who habitually perform in the Mexican theatres. "Old age seems to be its necessary atmosphere, improvisation, its only method, lack of culture, its content. Old age, improvisation, and lack of culture work together to enclose the theatre in a dark and stuffy corner, in order to free it from the temptation that might return it to the health it has lost."⁸

Villaurrutia decries the lack of adequate theatre buildings and the lack of competent actors. "Too big or too uncomfortable, the legitimate theatres do not fit any of the needs of the show nor of the modern public."⁹ As for the actors, "Where are the actors, masters of a new or classical criterion toward their art that permits them to give more than superficial versions of the personage which they are playing?"¹⁰ He goes on to say that if it has any, the remedy for the theatre in Mexico is in creating a new atmosphere for it, in making it breathe a pure air, "untying it from a false tradition, renewing its human material, its useful materials, and creating young, living friendships to form its new public."¹¹

Xavier Villaurrutia believes it would be wrong to take into account the state of the theatre in Mexico, and not extend it a hand that would perhaps help save it. He cites as an example the Ulysses experiment:

Take for instance that theatre of Ulysses, formed exclusively by artists or apprentices in which we were everything, actors, translators, directors, scenographers. The modern critics of the Mexican theatre speak of this as an exotic attempt. Discounting the irony which they wish to give to their definition they are right. The Ulysses experiment was exotic, because its triumphs came from outside: new works, a new sense of interpretation, and attempts at new staging, could not come from where they did not exist. A curious fear this, of foreign influence. Fear of losing a personality it did not have.¹²

When Villaurrutia and José Gorostiza were in the Department of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Education they organized an informal experiment called the "Theatre of Orientation." Based on the same ideas of universality and modernity as the Ulysses group, the plans were outlined, the repertoire decided upon and activities begun in 1932. Celestino Gorostiza undertook the directing of the players. "With great care he trained new actors, introduced new techniques. Hedirected ten plays in one year, always obtaining correct versions, and at times, definite successes.¹³

The repertoire of the "Theatre of Orientation" in 1932, chosen from the best classical and modern works, ranged from the Antigone of Sophocles, modernized by Jean Cocteau, to the recent play, Intimacy, of Jean Victor Pellerin. A short play of Cervantes, The Jealous Old Man, and a comedy of Shakespeare were among the classical works; Chekhov, Romains, O'Neill, Shaw, Synge, among the modern writers. Except for the work of Shakespeare, adapted by Jacinto Benavente, the rest were translated especially for these presentations by Xavier Villaurrutia and Augustin Lazo. The impetus acquired by the "Theatre of Orientation" in the same year, made it possible to present certain other works: Marriage by Gogol, Macbeth by Shakespeare, in an excellent simplification and adaptation for little theatre by Agustín Lazo, and a comedy by Jules Romains, Amadeus or Knights in a Row. Of the work of this group, Villaurrutia says, "If the Theatre of Orientation has not given the truth, if it is not theatre, it is a good conception of the theatre."¹⁴

As a young man, Xavier Villaurrutia was an actor in the Fábregas theatre, and in the Orpheus theatre at the time of the Ulysses theatrical experiment. Later he limited his theatrical activities to directing, teaching dramatics, and writing plays. He was cautious in the initiation of his career as a dramatist. Even though he had attained fame young as a poet, he started his dramatic writing with a series of one-act dramatic pieces, only after he was well grounded in the continental theatre. In these sketches he turned briefly to the impressionistic and expressionistic models he found there. They were studies in the art of learning the technique of the theatre, which Villaurrutia later came to dominate.

When he edited these in one volume, he called them Popular Allegories.¹⁵ The influence of Oscar Wilde and Luigi Pirandello is perceptible in these first plays of Villaurrutia: "It Seems a Lie," "The Moment Has Come," "What Are You Thinking About?" "Be Brief," "The Absent One."¹⁶ They are witty, dramatic riddles, with no sentimental material in them, full of play on words and clever conversations. The spectator is obliged to do mental gymnastics to follow them and to appreciate them.

After these small works were presented, Villaurrutia felt himself ready to write longer, more complete plays, such as The Ivy, The Legitimate Wife, Invitation to Death, The Great Mistake, Poor Blue Beard, Dangerous Game.¹⁷ Enrique Díez Canedo says:

The days are past in which Villaurrutia, preoccupied with the desire "to be modern,' gave his farces a juvenile subtleness, difficult to be captured by the public in general. Now without being less modern, rather on the contrary, presenting modern works, he succeeds in interesting and moving the public of Mexico, taking advantage of elements which are capable of winning the entire public, not only today's, but tomorrow's.¹⁸

In these later plays, Xavier Villaurrutia has preferred to give up many of his experimental ideas, substituting for them works of psychological analysis and moral conflict.¹⁹ Love and death, the great themes of his poetry, born from the testimony of his own feelings, appear in his plays, and here too, they become anguished and tragic when pierced by his intelligence.

Against the generally held doctrines of the perfectibility of the human race and of the unceasing march of progress, Xavier Villaurrutia finds himself in dissent. He believes neither in the fetish of progress nor in the power of men in groups to raise themselves above the level of the individuals who make up the group. Villaurrutia is at heart a pessimist. Inexorability, changelessness, are the laws of life as he sees it, for example, in Invitation to Death. Behind man is the calm will of nature.

It is this fatalistic point of view that gives a humorous and pathetic cast to Villaurrutia's profound interest in personality in all its guises and variations. Poor Blue Beard presents the problem of the man who feigned love for several women to regain the love of his wife, and was successful in doing so. The Legitimate Wife brings us the psychological conflict involved when the second wife is introduced into the home where grown children are already present. Both plays reveal the incommensurable power generated by those who are held to be the weakest among us.

The dramatic efforts of Xavier Villaurrutia extended to the cinema, where in addition to his talents as a critic, he exercised his gifts as a dialogist and dramatic writer. One of his original movies was the "Mulatto Woman of Cordoba"; and under the same title he wrote the libretto for an opera in one act, in collaboration with Agustín Lazo. The opera, with music by Pablo Moncayo, was presented in the Palace of Fine Arts in 1948.²⁰ The picture, directed by Adolfo Fernández Bustamante had been filmed previously.

Especially for Virginia Fábregas, Villaurrutia wrote the dialogue for "The House of the Fox," and included scenes from other works which the actress had performed with success in her career. The director, Juan J. Ortega, directed a film version of The Legitimate Wife, with Anita Blanch, and María Antioneta Pons in the leading roles.²¹ Villaurrutia collaborated closely with Julio Bracho in some of his best pictures; to Villaurrutia is due the difficult film version of Luís Fernández Ardavín's work in verse, "The White Monk." He also supervised the adaptation and dialogue of "Another Dawn," and other pictures by this same director.

At the time of his death²² Villaurrutia was working on a drama concerning the short-lived empire of Iturbide, he had just finished a new picture for Julio Bracho, and he was preparing for a trip to Italy. In reality, Villaurrutia had traveled very little; he had made only one trip to the United States in 1939 to study dramatics in New Haven, under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. In the Institute of Fine Arts, he held the chair of dramatic arts; he helped start such actors as Beatriz Aguirre, Orazio Fontanot, and Raúl Dantés.

Just when Xavier Villaurrutia had attained control of his medium, when he had in hand the instrument that was to permit him to write his own masterpiece, he died. We can say that he realized himself fully as a poet, but not as a dramatist. His plays were but steps, studies, preparatory works for something which death did not permit him to complete.

Only those who knew him in his works and dealt with him personally, only those who have enjoyed his brilliant conversation, witty, ingenuous, and wise, and have followed the studious and solid career of this true man of literature, can realize, at this time, what the death of Xavier Villaurrutia means to Mexican letters, where he is recognized as one of the outstanding values.²³

NOTES

¹ "Contemporáneos" included such writers as Carlos Pellicer, Jaime Torres Bodet, Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, Enrique González Rojo, Octavio G. Barreda, José Gorostiza, Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo. Their aims were purely literary; they were influenced by the modern French writers, and to some extent, by the later English and North American authors. Their magazine was also known as Contemporáneos, and was published in Mexico from 1928 to 1931. José Luis Martínez in his Literatura mexicana siglo XX, primera parte (Robredo, Mexico, 1949), p. 30, says of these men: "Les caracteriza su preocupacion exclusivamente literaria y los límites que imponen a su formación cultural. En ella privan las letras francesas más modernas, con predilección las del grupo de la Nouvelle Revue Française y, en menor grado, la poesía española posterior a Juan Ramón Jiménez y la estética de los nuevos prosistas y pensadores de la Revista de Occidente. Junto a estos elementos de la formación de los "contemporáneos" debe añadirse, aunque no sea común a todos, la frecuentación de los nuevos autores ingleses, norteamericanos, italianos y, ocasionalmente, hispanoamericanos."

² Villaurrutia's poetry: Reflejos, Ed. Cultura, Mexico, 1926; Dos nocturnos, Supplement of Barandal, Mexico, 1931; Nocturnos, Ed. Fábula, Mexico, 1933; Nocturno de los ángeles, Ed. Hipocampo, Mexico, 1936; Nocturno mar, Ed. Hipocampo, Mexico, 1937; Nostalgia de la muerte, Ed. Sur, Buenos Aires, 1938; Décima muerte y otros poemas no coleccionados Ed. Nueva Voz, Mexico, 1941; Nostalgia de la muerte, Ed. Mictlán, Mexico, 1946 (enlarged edition); Canto a la primavera y otros poemas, Ed. Nueva Floresta, Mexico, 1948. His theatre: Parece mentira, Imprenta Mundial, Mexico, 1934; ¿En qué piensas? Ed. Letras de Mexico, Mexico, 1938; Sea Vd. breve, Ed. Cuadernos de Mexico Nuevo, Mexico, 1938; La hiedra, Ed. Nueva Cultura, Mexico, 1941; La mujer legítima, Ed. Rafael Loera y Chávez, Mexico, 1943; Autos profanos, Ed. Letras de Mexico, Mexico, 1943; Invitación a la muerte, Ed. Letras de Mexico, Mexico, 1944; El yerro candente, Ed. Letras de Mexico, Mexico, 1945; El pobre Barba Azul, Ed. Teatro Mexicano Contemporáneo, Mexico, 1948; La muíate de Córdoba, opera in one act, Mexico, 1948 (in collaboration with Augustin Lazo); Juego peligroso, Mexico, 1950; La tragedia de las equivocaciones, a monologue, Mexico, 1950. His essays and criticism: La poesía de los jóvenes en Mexico, Ed. Revista Antena, Mexico, 1924; Textos y pretextos, Ed. La Case de España en México, Mexico, 1940; critical prologues, and articles in El Hijo Pródigo, Letras de México, Romance, Contemporáneos, Ulises, Tierra Nueva, Hoy.

³ José Luis Martínez, "Entrevista con Xavier Villaurrutia," Novedades, January 14, 1951, p. 1.

⁴ Martínez, op. cit., p. 1.

⁵Cf. Celestino Gorostiza, "El teatro de Xavier Villaurrutia," Letras de México, April 1, 1938, #26, pp. 1-2.

⁶Textos y pretextos, p. 171.

⁷Textos y pretextos, p. 179.

⁸Ibid., p. 184.

⁹Ibid., p. 184.

¹⁰Textos y pretextos, p. 184.

¹¹Ibid., p. 187.

¹²Ibid., p. 187.

¹³Textos y pretextos, p. 188.

¹⁴Ibid., p. 190.

¹⁵Autos profanos.

I6"Parece mentira," "Ha llegado el momento," "En qué piensas?" "Sea usted breve," "El ausente." Cf., also Rafael Solana, "Villaurrutia: comediógrafo," Hoy, January 27, 1951, p. 38.

¹⁷"La hiedra, La mujer legítima, Invitación a la muerte, El yerro candente, El pobre Barba Azul, Juego peligroso.

¹⁸"Introduction to La mujer legitima, pp. 9-10.

¹⁹José Luís Martínez feels that Villaurrutia betrays the cause of the experimental theatre in these later plays. Cf. his Literatura mexicana siglo XX, p. 135.

²⁰Cf., Rafael Solana, op. cit., p. 38.

²¹Ibid.

²²Xavier Villarrutia was born in the city of Mexico, December 3, 1903; he died there suddenly, the 25th of December, 1950.

²³His friends and contemporary writers dedicated to him the January 14, 1951 issue of Novedades and entitled it "Homenaje a Xavier Villaurrutia."