Marcela Del Río Reyes

Early life

Del Río Reyes was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City on May 30, 1932 and grew up in the bosom of a family of writers. Her mother: María Aurelia Reyes de del Río was a writer, journalist and painter; her father: Manuel del Río Govea was a lawyer, historian and in his youth, an actor; her brother: Carlos Pacheco Reyes was a philosopher, journalist and psychiatrist. She learned to paint and inherited her liking for literature and classical music from her mother. Her liking for theater and interest in history came from her father. The unexpected death of her mother when she was only 17 years old, forced her to quit her studies and get a job as a secretary in a government office. Alfonso Reyes, her great uncle, revised her first newspaper articles that she had started to write (although she had already won first prize for her poetry when she was 16 years of age) after retaining the column of opera reviews that her mother had previously. Del Río Reyes also had the privilege of working as an assistant to the iconic figure of Mexico, Diego Rivera, during the last four years of his life. She was married to the world-renowned Mexican violinist, Hermilo Novelo, for 23 years, until his tragic death in an automobile accident in 1983 at the age of 52.

Studies

Doctor in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. High school: Universidad Femenina de México. College preparatory studies: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Dramatic arts: Academia Cinematográfica de México, directed by Celestino Gorostiza; Escuela de Arte Teatral de Bellas Artes, where her professors were Salvador Novo, José de Jesús Aceves, André Moreau, Francisco Monterde, and Gorostiza himself. After graduating, the dramatic director, Seki Sano, gave her a scholarship to study in his Academia, where she shared a classroom with actors from previous generations, such as Wolf Ruvinskis and María Douglas.

Professional Activities

Del Río Reyes's successful acting career in theater was launched in 1952 with her debut in the play, Contigo, pan y cebolla by Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, alongside Manolo Fábregas and under the direction of Salvador Novo. She would go on to have roles in other plays such as Un día de octubre by George Kaiser; Empire State by Lino Landy; La molinera de Arcos by Alejandro Casona; El juicio by Alfredo Pacheco Buenrostro, and Por el ojo de una aguja by Carlos Prieto, among others. In 1957, Del Río Reyes wrote her first drama Fraude a la tierra, a monologue that addresses the hardships of the Mexican emigrant laborers. She took it to Moscow and assumed the role of director and actress. It premiered on August 3 in the Malenki Theater during a festival. After returning from her first trip to Europe, she realized that the type of dramatic activity that gave her more satisfaction was writing. However, she still fulfilled the previous commitment to act in Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega and directed by Alvaro Custodio, even though it would be her last performance. Two years later, Del Río Reyes directed her monologue Fraude a la tierra in the Instituto Regional de Cuernavaca, with one of her theater students playing the role of the female protagonist. She became a collaborator in 1958 for the cultural supplement section of the newspaper Excélsior in Mexico City where she published daily interviews. That same year, she set in motion her teaching career as professor of dramatic arts in the Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP). Her new position was the result of a project designed to teach courses to manual laborers in Ciudad Sahagún. Shortly thereafter, she would join the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) as professor of dramatic arts, teaching her classes in the Centro de Iniciación Artística in Cuernavaca and in the one in Atzcapotalco. As a drama critic, Del Río Reyes published during a period of ten years (1958–1968), the column Diorama teatral in the supplement Diorama de la Cultura of the newspaper Excélsior, using the pen-name Mara Reyes. She joined the teaching body at the Escuela de Arte Teatral de Bellas Artes in Mexico City where she remained as a professor until 1972.

Her literary production increased throughout the 1960s, specifically that of her plays. She would write dramas such as En las manos de Uno, Miralina, El hijo de trapo and Claudia y Arnot, these last three written in accordance with her manifest of relativist drama. El hijo de trapo won various regional and national awards in the competitions sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) such as the Premio Regional en Mérida during the third national theater competition there. Del Río Reyes also collaborated with other prestigious drama critics in publications about Mexican theater during this decade. Another literary achievement of hers is the writing of her short-story La bomba "L" in 1965 that years later would be converted into her first novel.

The 1970s continued bringing critical acclaim to Del Río Reyes' play-writing. El pulpo -Tragedia de los hermanos Kennedy- debuted in 1970 under the direction of Jorge Esma in the Teatro del Bosque in Mexico City. This documentary play about the controversy surrounding the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy ended up winning the national prize Juan Ruíz de Alarcón for drama by the Asociación de Críticos de México. The commemorative plaque of its 100 stagings was revealed in the Teatro Reforma also in Mexico City, site to which it was moved after its inaugural season in the Teatro del Bosque. Her epic poem Trece Cielos, composed of alexandrine sonnets, won the national prize Olímpico in 1968 for poetry. However, in 1975, it is staged as a theatrical show by Joaquín Lanz in the Teatro de la Procaduría General de la República Mexicana. Later, it would be recorded on a disk commemorating the "International Year of the Woman". Aside from her plays, Del Río Reyes' first novel Proceso a Faubritten was published in 1976. During this decade, she and her husband, Hermilo Novelo moved to Prague in 1972 upon being appointed as cultural attaché in the Mexican Embassy and remained there for five years. Between 1977 and 1979, Del Río Reyes was the head of Unidad de Relaciones Culturales Internacionales of the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico in which she created cultural projects such as the current Centro de Investigación y Documentación Teatral Rodolfo Usigli. In 1979, her diplomatic and civil servant activities continued as she was once again appointed to be the cultural attaché in the Mexican Embassy in Brussels. Although much of her time was consumed by her diplomatic obligations in the Mexican Embassy, the articles, poems and essays she managed to write in her free time ended up being published in European journals.

The beginning of the 1980s would be marked by tragedy when her husband is killed unexpectedly in a car accident while en route to a concert in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in 1983. The following year, she paid tribute to his memory upon writing the monologue De camino al concierto and it ended up inaugurating the first Latin Theater festival in Los Angeles as well as winning the César prize for best play. Shortly thereafter, Del Río Reyes would take her award winning monologue to Mexico and stage it in the Teatro Benito Juárez. The actor, Luis Miranda, would play the role of the violinist for both seasons and he received critical acclaim for his performance from drama critics. A plaque was placed in the Teatro Benito Juárez to celebrate its 100 stagings in 1985. After completing the exams she needed to take in order to finish her high school studies, she pursued a degree in Hispanic literature from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and graduated in 1988. That same year, her novel La cripta del espejo was published as well as her historical play, Tlacaélel. At the age of 56, she would leave Mexico, complete her doctorate at the University of California, Irvine in one year and accept a teaching position as Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Central Florida, where she would be promoted to Associate Professor and eventually Full Professor.

Although she spent the decade of the 90's in the United States because of her newly acquired faculty position, she still dedicated time to her own creative writing. Her book of poems Homenaje a Remedios Varo, won the Letras de Oro first prize in poetry, and the University of Miami and Spain/92 published it in 1993. Besides her writing, she also found time to continue painting and some of her art would be shown in galleries and museums in Miami, New York City and Washington, D.C.

Del Río Reyes retired from the University of Central Florida in 2004, after 14 years of service as a professor. The following year, she returned to Mexico and moved to the city of Cuernavaca. To this day, she continues writing, painting, teaching and receiving recognition for her literary contributions.

Manifest of Relativist Drama

In 1961, during the process of writing the play En las manos de uno Auto no sacramental, Del Río Reyes pronounces herself in favor of a renovation of drama and writes a manifest titled Por un teatro relativista [In pro of Relativist Drama]. That play and the others that follow it in 1962: Miralina, Claudia y Arnot and El hijo de trapo are products of her new theater. These three plays in this orientation were published by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in 1965. In her manifest “Por un teatro relativista” [In pro of Relativist Drama], Del Río Reyes proposes the creation of “un teatro que establezca vínculos con una realidad dinámica” [a drama that establishes ties with a dynamic reality](3). According to her dramatic proposal, drama is not able to show life as something static, but rather as an always changing process in movement. Del Río Reyes explains in her manifest that each moment of reality is lived by each person that participates in that reality in a different way. For that reason, a permanent reality does not exist, because there is not just one reality, but so many in which individuals participate in that moment. Thus, drama should show an infinite quantity of a person's identification with himself or herself and the infinite forms with the people that surround him or her.

Awards and Honors

Poetry

Novels

Short stories

Plays

Essays