Personal information

Surname: la Parra
First name: Marco
Middle names: Antonio
Born: 1952, Santiago, Chile

Biography

Marco Antonio de la Parra is both a medical practitioner (a psychiatrist) and an artist (director, playwright and fiction writer).  He was the director of the university theatre group in the school of medicine in the University of Chile between 1974 and 1977, and the company, La Teatroneta, between 1984 and 1987.  He founded Teatro de la Pasión Inextinguible (Theatre of Unquenchable Passion) in 1987, and acted as the cultural attaché for the Chilean embassy in Madrid between 1991 and 1993. 

Marco Antonio de la Parra is the author of over 30 plays.  He is an essayist and television critic and teaches dramaturgy in Chile and internationally. 

Themes

Chilean history, politics and national identity are central themes in Marco Antonio de la Parra’s work.   His theatre analyses how power is played out at the level of individual relationships, as well as on a national scale. 

Style

Marco Antonio de la Parra’s theatre can be satirical and also incorporates a variety of elements from collective memory and popular culture.

Plays in the database

• Lo crudo, lo cocido y lo podrido (c.1978) / The Raw, the Cooked and the Rotten

Other works

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 1974. Quiebrespejos (Cracked Mirrors) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 2011. Diván (Bed) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 2007. La casa de dios (The House of God) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 2001. Estamos en el aire (We’re in the Air) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 1985. La secreta obscenidad de cada día (Secret Obscenities) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 2000. Monogamia (Monogamy) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 1993. Telémaco o el padre ausente (Telemachus or the Absent Father) (in Spanish)

• De la Parra, Marco Antonio. 1993. Tristan e Isolda (Tristan and Isolde) (in Spanish)

Useful reading and websites

• Bixler, Jaqueline Eyring. 1993. ‘Kitsch and Corruption: Referential Degeneration in the Theatre of Marco Antonio de la Parra’ in Siglo XX: 20th Century, 11.1-2, 11-29

• Boyle, Catherine. 1989. ‘La obra dramatic de Marco Antonio de la Parra o la representación de un juego hamletiano’ in Alba de América 7.12-13, 145-150 (in Spanish)

• Cozzi, Enzo. 1990. ‘Political theatre in Present-Day Chile: A Duality of Approaches’, New Theatre Quarterly. 6.22, 119-127

Entry written by Gwendolen Mackeith. Last updated on 28 March 2012.

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