CONSTRUCTIVE ART IN LA FUGA EN EL ESPEJO. CONVERGENCES BETWEEN "PACO" ESPÍNOLA AND THE TORRES GARCÍA WORKSHOP

Abstract

Two artists, a theater, and a controversial avant-garde play. The first one, Joaquín Torres García, managed to incorporate European artistic ideas and translate them into his own art, which was alien to schematic classifications. This is how he shaped the School of the South and gave life to Constructive Universalism. The second one, Francisco Paco Espínola, was one of the main Uruguayan storytellers of the 20^th century. In this context, on May 23 1937, Espínola premiered the theatrical play La fuga en el espejo at the now-vanished Urquiza Theater, a piece linked to artistic vanguard. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between the arts of the period and their translation in the staging of the dramatic piece. To this end, the paper goes through the works of Torres García, the School of the South, and Espínola across their various artistic expressions: lectures, books, texts, and art associations. The conclusion is that all of them sought to search a balance between global and local art and translate it into a personal and individual expression with great moral impetus. The materialization of La fuga en el espejo plays with the dreamlike quality of the dialogues, the symbology of the scenography, fragmented time, a distance from the audience, and an open ending. It marked the beginning and the end of avant-garde theater in Uruguay in the 1930s.