SOURCE: "The Influence of the French Theatre in the Plays of Xavier Villaurrutia," in Latin American Theatre Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall, 1969, pp. 9-15.

In the following essay, Cypess closely examines the influence of French playwrights, particularly Henri-René Lenormand, on Villaurrutia's dramatic work.

Before Xavier Villaurrutia became involved with the Mexican theatre, he had already gained fame as a poet and was associated with the avant-garde literary group Los Contemporáneos. Before he produced his first play in 1933, he had been intimately connected with a new trend in the Mexican theatre, the experimental movement. For Villaurrutia the experimental theatres provided first a learning experience and then a testing ground for his theatrical ideas. Villaurrutia acknowledges the importance of this experience, admitting, "I . . . would very likely never have written plays without the Ulises experience."¹ His apprenticeship as a playwright took him through the roles of actor, director, and translator of...