A Touch of Evil: Jesusa Rodriguez's Subversive Church

Abstract

In September 1991 Jesusa Rodriguez and the singer/composer/pianist Liliana Felipe were about to open an independent theatre in Mexico City. The theatre on Calle Madrid in Coyoacan is named La Capilla, since the remodeled building was formerly the private chapel of a vast old house. It would be hard to imagine a more evocative and provocative site for a theatre directed by Jesusa Rodriguez, who has often targeted the Church with her irreverant and cutting satire. Furthermore, the house and its chapel once belonged to Salvador Novo, a major avant-garde and gay poet. After his death in 1975, Novo's heir rented the house to Jesusa and Felipe, who opened a bar, restaurant, and cabaret called El Habito (a nice pun on the monastic "habit"). They decided to turn the chapel into an 8o-seat chamber theatre that would be independent of official funding, which is unusual for Mexico.