Germán Luco Cruchaga
Germán Luco Cruchaga was a notable Chilean playwright and journalist, born in Santiago in 1894. He is best known for his contributions to Chilean theater during the early 20th century, particularly for his acclaimed play "La viuda de Apablaza," which premiered in 1928 and quickly became a sensation in Santiago. Although Luco Cruchaga's work did not achieve widespread recognition outside of Chile, he is often mentioned alongside other prominent Chilean playwrights such as Armando Moock and Antonio Azevedo Hernandez. His first play, "Amo y señor," was performed in 1926, and he also authored "Bailebuén," which remained unpublished during his lifetime. Luco Cruchaga's meticulous nature and perfectionism may have contributed to his limited output, as he was known to frequently revise his scripts before finalizing them for production. The backdrop of his career included a transformative period in Chile, where the shift from feudalism to capitalism influenced the cultural landscape and fueled a burgeoning interest in theater. Despite his limited body of work, his plays reflect the societal changes of his time and offer insight into the Chilean experience.
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Subject Terms
Germán Luco Cruchaga
Playwright
- Born: May 4, 1894
- Birthplace: Santiago, Chile
- Died: June 2, 1936
Biography
Germán Luco Cruchaga enjoyed great popularity in his native Chile, where his name is often linked with those of Armando Moock and Antonio Azevedo Hernandez, other popular Chilean playwrights of the same period. His reputation has not extended far beyond Chile. A journalist, he also wrote plays, including Amo y senor, performed at the Teatro Esmeralda in Santiago, Chile, in 1926.
His most famous play, La viuda de Apablaza, premiered at Santiago’s Teatro La Comedia in 1928. The only other play he wrote is Bailebuén, which was not performed during his lifetime and was published in Teatro (1979), a collection his plays. Luco Cruchaga’s meager output is probably the result of his endless revision and rewriting. He was a perfectionist reluctant to turn his scripts over to acting companies. Besides his three plays, his novel, Garabito, and three short stories were published in the periodical Atenea.
Luco Cruchaga was born in Santiago in 1894. He lived at a propitious time in Chile’s history. The country was passing from virtual feudalism into an age of modern capitalism. Throughout the nineteenth century, Chile had a form of government specifically designed to favor the country’s large land owners. Luco Cruchaga was descended from this landed gentry, although he was not rich himself. The last president of Chile as it functioned under its old oligarchic system was Juan Luis Sanfuentes, the playwright’s great-uncle.
European touring companies frequently visited Chile before World War I, creating an enthusiasm for theater among its residents. After the war, two Chilean actors formed Chile’s first indigenous theater company. By 1919, Santiago had twenty theaters as well as a number of active touring companies. It had a growing middle-class eager and financially able to attend plays. The Golden Age of Chilean theater had begun and continued for almost a decade until an economic crisis in 1928 converged with the advent of talking films to derail this theatrical boom.
Early in the 1920’s, Luco Cruchaga completed Amo y senor, which he submitted to a commercial company, whose governing board rejected it, probably because of its depiction of an upper-class family’s corruption. The author put the play aside, but in 1926 he showed it to his friend, Evaristo Lillo, a prominent actor and founder of one of Chile’s earliest theater companies. Lillo arranged the play’s production with himself playing the lead. The production was a resounding success.
At about this time, however, Luco Cruchaga was fired from his newspaper job. He had recently married Maria Vargas, whose father hired Luco Cruchaga to oversee his property in the remote village of Quitrahue. Here the author met a woman who provided the material for his most famous play, La viuda de Apablaza, which became the hit of the season in Santiago in 1928. His third play, Bailebuén, was named for a medicinal herb used much as Viagra has been in recent times.