Laughter and Absurdity in Bajo tierra: The Adventures of the Mexican Catrina

Abstract

Although, of course, nobody wants to die, death in Mexico is a friendly presence that, although it can play tricks on us, also accompanies us to revelry, to drink and to enjoy life. For this reason, it is very common to find literary recreations where there is an ambivalent, playful and disturbing relationship between the living and the dead, with labile borders between both universes. In Bajo tierra, David Olguín recreates, in a comic key, a facet of this close relationship between life and death and he does so by appealing to the historical figure of the great Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada. In this text, we will see how the playwright builds a great game, a great masquerade, which includes mischief, ingenuity, so that its protagonists try to escape from the nets of death, which is always lurking.