Marco Antonio de la Parra (born 23 January 1952) is a Chilean psychiatrist, writer, and dramatist. Many of his works, which are strongly influenced by the country's 1973–90 military regime, satirize the national condition through metaphors. He is the author of more than 70 titles translated into several languages, including plays, novels, storybooks, and essays.
His career as a dramatist began at the university, where he directed the Theater of the Faculty of Medicine from 1974 to 1976, and became known as a playwright. In 1975 he received an honorable mention in the university's dramaturgy competition for Matatangos, disparen sobre el zorzal, which would be released three years later.[1]
In 1978, his play Lo crudo, lo cocido, lo podrido was censored prior to its premiere at the Catholic University. Hernán Larraín, the head of a commission representing the military regime, insisted that this was not a political persecution, writing, "We suppress it for the language and its content, which we consider disrespectful." María de la Luz Hurtado, a researcher for the university's theater school, disagreed with this, writing, "The work was not censored because there was rudeness, but for a political issue, obviously. There is no doubt that what is symbolized there is the authoritarian order."[2]
Between 1984 and 1987, de la Parra directed the company La Teatroneta. He then founded the Theater of the Inextinguishable Passion. He was later artistic director of the Transatlantic Project, for scenic investigation and expanding the exchange of theatrical teaching between Chile and Spain.[3] As an actor, he has interpreted many of his own works.
With Chile's return to democracy, after Augusto Pinochet was forced to surrender power due to his defeat in the 1988 plebiscite, de la Parra was appointed cultural attaché to the embassy in Spain by the government of Patricio Aylwin. He served in this position from January 1991 to September 1993.
On his return from Spain, he was a television critic for the evening edition of La Segunda, under the pseudonym Zap Zap, until 1998. De la Parra has ventured into several literary genres: story, novel, drama, essay, script, and chronicle. In addition, he has taught at the Catholic University, where he was Professor of Dramaturgy from 1993 to 1995. Beginning in 2005, he directed Finis Terrae University's School of Literature of the Faculty of Communications and Humanities and, from 2012 to 2015, its Theater School.[4] At this house of studies he also directs the 21st Century Chair, which puts forward reflections on the great trends that are prevailing in the fields of culture, science, and social disciplines.[5] He was the host of Puro cuento on Duna FM [es]. In addition, he conducts dramaturgy workshops both in Chile and abroad.
In 1997 he was elected an active member of the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts, where he occupies chair No. 22.[7] His works have been translated into several languages.
He is married to the journalist Ana Josefa Silva.
The playwright
De la Parra in 2013
Professor Adolfo Albornoz Farías argues that,
From the thematic perspective, the theatrical production of Marco Antonio de la Parra is organized around three substantial investigations. The first is related to the permanent revision of Chilean history and identity, especially in its republican and modern context. The national imagination, its stories and myths, referents and icons, and its memory, have been preferentially examined in Lo crudo, lo cocido, lo podrido (1978), through La pequeña historia de Chile (1994). The second research project is related to the incessant siege of the subjectivity of the Chilean middle class at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The main tensions of this class, their loves and hatreds, loyalties and betrayals, its political and economic determinants, have been particularly addressed, for example, in Infieles (1988), El continente negro (1994), Monogamia (2000), and Sushi (2003). The third obsession has been the permanent appropriation and resemantization, since the end of the century in Chile, of many of the main western cultural icons. Marx and Freud, Tarzan and Mandrake, Neruda and Dostoevsky, Shakespeare and Cervantes, Pinochet and Bush, Greek tragedy and reality shows, high tech and sushi, war and the mass media, etc., have been collected and reworked from Matatangos, disparen sobre el zorzal (1975), through La secreta obscenidad de cada día (1984), King Kong Palace o el exilio de Tarzán (1990), and Madrid/Sarajevo (1999), to Wittgenstein, el último filósofo (2004), among many other pieces.[1]
Works
Lo crudo, lo cocido, lo podrido, play, 1978 (reedited by LOM, 2010)
Lindo país esquina con vista al mar, coauthor, play, 1979
La mar estaba serena, coauthor, play, 1980
Teatro: Lo crudo, lo cocido, lo podrido / Matatangos, disparen sobre El zorzal, Santiago, Chile: Nacimiento, 1983 (prologue by Juan Andrés Piña)
La secreta obscenidad de cada día, play, 1984
El deseo de toda ciudadana, novel, Ediciones del Ornitorrinco, 1986; adapted for the theater in 1987 by director Ramón Griffero, and in 2017 by Elsa Poblete [es]
Sueños eróticos/Amores imposibles, stories, Ediciones del Ornitorrinco, 1986
Infieles, play, 1988
Obscenamente (in)fiel o una personal crónica de mi prehistoria dramatúrgica, professional autobiography, Santiago, Planeta, 1988
La secreta guerra santa de Santiago de Chile, novel, Planeta, Santiago, 1989
La noche de los volantines, coauthor, play, premiere: 1989, Teatro Ictus, directed by Nissim Sharim
King Kong Palace o El exilio de Tarzán, play, 1990 (published by Pehuén, together with the following piece)
Dostoievski va a la playa, play, 1990 (published by Pehuén, together with the previous piece)
El padre muerto, play, 1991 (Menoría: Ediciones Premio Borne, 1992)
Dédalus en el vientre de la bestia o Dédalus/Subamérica, play, 1992
Telémaco/Subeuropa o El padre ausente, play, 1993
Tristán e Isolda, play, 1993
Heroína, play, Valladolid: Ediciones Premio Caja España, 1994
El continente negro, play, CELCIT, Buenos Aires, 1994
Ofelia o la madre muerta, play, 1994
La pequeña historia de Chile, play, 1994
La pérdida del tiempo, novel, Editorial Sudamericana, Santiago, 1994
Cartas a un joven dramaturgo, essay, Santiago, Dolmen, 1995 (Mexico edition in 2007)
Grandes éxitos y otros fracasos, stories, Planeta, Santiago, 1996. Contains ten previously published stories and six unpublished
El ángel de la culpa y otros textos, Colcultura, 1996
La mala memoria. Historia personal de Chile contemporáneo, essay, 1997
La puta madre, play, 1997
La vida privada/La puta madre, Casa de América, Madrid, 1998
El televidente, essay in which he reflects on his experience as a TV critic in the second half of the 1980s; Planeta, Santiago, 1998
Carta abierta a Pinochet. Monólogo de la clase media chilena con su padre, essay, Planeta, Santiago, 1998
Teatro mutilado de Chile. Caracas and Santiago: Dolmen Ediciones, 1998. Contains:
Telemaco/Subeuropa (o El padre ausente) y La tierra insomne (o también La Orestiada de Chile [Tragedia griega sin griegos, Orestiada sin Orestes] o más propiamente conocida como La puta madre o igualmente La madre patria)
Dios ha muerto, play, 1999
Madrid/Sarajevo, play, 1999
La familia, play, 1999
Heroína. Teatro repleto de mujeres, Cuarto Propio, 1999
"Bajo la lluvia", "Mi padre hablaba boleros", "Querido Coyote", "Nunca se publicaron: las obras completas de Norton Jaramillo", "Pequeña novela gótica", "El maestro de Claudia", "Paul & John", "Nada es para siempre", "El libro negro del cine chileno", "Arena en las sábanas", and "No te quedes muda"
(Estamos) en el aire, play, 2001
El año de la ballena, young adult novel, Alfaguara, Serie Roja, 2001
El cuerpo de Chile, Planeta/Ariel, Santiago, 2002
El cuaderno de Mayra, young adult novel, Alfaguara, Serie Roja, 2002
Anunciome, poems by de la Parra with drawings by Eva Lefever; BankBoston and Friends of Museums and Fine Arts Corporation, 2002
Sobre los hombres (o lo que queda de ellos), Grijalbo, Santiago, 2003
Sushi, play, 2003
El Cristo entrando en Bruselas (basado en el cuadro de James Ensor), novel, Editorial Cuarto Propio, Santiago, 2003
La sexualidad secreta de los hombres, 2004
Wittgenstein, el último filósofo, play, 2004
Te amaré toda la vida, novel, Plaza Janés, 2005
El teatro, la escena secreta, play, premiered by the Chilean National Theater in 2006
Crear o caer, essay, Ediciones B, Buenos Aires, 2006
La cruzada de los niños, play, premiered in 2006
Decapitation, play; premiered in 2006; directed by Jesús Barranco, Blenamiboá and El Tinglao companies
Vencer la depresión, psychology, editorial Vergara, 2009
Paul & John, theatrical adaptation of the novela enana, brought to the stage in 2010 by Daniel Lattus[8]
La casa de Dios, 2007
La entrevista, o El piano mundo
La secreta obscenidad de cada día, anthology, with prologue by Teresina Bueno; Arte y Escena; 2010, Mexico D.F. Containing:
La secreta obscenidad de cada día, Telémaco/Sub-Europa, o El padre ausente, El deseo de toda ciudadana, Querido coyote, and Tristán e Isolda
La vida doble, theatrical adaptation of the novel of the same name by Arturo Fontaine Talavera, premiere: 31 July 2014, Finis Terrae theater; direction: Claudia Fernández[14]
Los pájaros cantan en griego, premiere: 22 July 2015, Finis Terrae theater; direction: Aliocha de la Sotta[15]
El amo, one-person show, 2017
Awards and recognitions
De la Parra signing copies of his adaptation of Hamlet with his wife Ana Josefa Silva and the cartoonist Rodrigo López, November 2016
1979 Latin American Theater Award, New York, for Lo crudo, lo cocido, lo podrido
1987 Ediciones Ornitorrinco Novel Contest Award for El deseo de toda ciudadana
1991 Borne Award, Spain, for El padre muerto
1993 Brief Theater Award, Spain, for Tristán e Isolda
Andes Foundation Grant (1994)
Prize of the Chile National Book Council on various occasions (1994–1995 and 2000–2004)
1996 José Nuez Martín Award for La pequeña historia de Chile[16]
1996 Association of Entertainment Journalists Award in Best Dramaturgy and Best Assembly for La pequeña historia de Chile
^"Nomina de Miembros" [List of Members] (in Spanish). Chilean Academy of Fine Arts. Archived from the original on 25 August 2011. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
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