Word: octavio
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...mainstream life through such means as the outdoor murals -- acts of public declamation in the tradition of the great Mexican muralists -- that are an essential part of the Los Angeles cityscape. Add to that sentiment the claims of family, the primal unit of Hispanic life. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz recently described it. "In the North American ethic" he wrote, "the center is the individual; in Hispanic morals the true protagonist is the family." It shows in the work of a photographer like Tony Mendoza. He sees in his extended Cuban family what it is that sometimes makes * them comic...
...customary Moliere style, Scapine is a romantic farce which pokes fun at the middle class. Octavio (Jon Blackstone) and Leander (Gintaras Valiulis), two wealthy young men, want to marry women considered unsuitable by their stuffy parents, Argante (Donal Logue) and Geronte (Celia Wren). They enlist the help of the mischievous Scapine (Maria Troy), a cunning, appealing servant...
After many tricks and turns of the plot, she succeeds in uniting Octavio and Leander with their beloved Hyacintha (Martha Redding) and Zerbinetta (Valerie Beck), as well as in bending every member of the educated class to her will...
...message in Scapine is not terribly profound. Moliere draws a harsh comic picture of the bourgeoisie, obsessed with money and appearances, yet gullible and foolish. Octavio and Leander, dependent upon their parents' fortunes, are too cowardly to follow their hearts. Argante and Geronte, mean and suspicious, cling so tightly to their purses that their children are relegated to a subordinate position in their lives. Only Scapine lives a life of pleasure, controlling the rich through her clever schemes...
...Mexico City, whatever its similarities to other great cities, is also uniquely itself, a special expression of its people and its traditions. "In the valley of Mexico [City] man feels himself suspended between heaven and earth, and he oscillates between contrary powers and forces," the poet Octavio Paz wrote in a study, The Labyrinth of Solitude. "Reality. .. exists by itself here, has a life of its own, and was not invented by man as it was in the United States . . . One of the most notable traits of the Mexican's character is his willingness to contemplate horror...