SOURCE: Herz, Theda M. “Jorge Ibargüengoitia's Carnival Pageantry: The Mexican Theatre of Power and the Power of Theater.” Latin American Theatre Review 28, no. 1 (fall 1994): 31-47.

In the following essay, Herz asserts that in El atentado Ibargüengoitia “recasts theatrical and national experiences in the carnival idiom in order to cultivate zestful irreverence toward Mexican sovereignty.”

Vincente Leñero entitled a study, published in four parts in 1987, “Los pasos de Jorge (Ibargüengoitia, Usigli y el teatro).” Among its various resonances,¹ Leñero's wording evokes Lope de Rueda's festive skit, El paso de las aceitunas, which remains synonymous with a primary acceptation of the term paso. An exploration of Ibargüengoitia's theatrical persona and his “drama criticism” actually reveals what Mikhail Bakhtin terms carnival spirit, a comedic élan that reaches its zenith on the stage in El atentado (1962), Ibargüengoitia's final, most critically acclaimed play. While Lope de...