RIP: Writer Egon Wolff dies at 90

Egon Wolff, outstanding playwright, dies at 90

At age 90, he died today the prominent national playwright Egon Wolff. The death was confirmed by the president of the National Council for Culture and the Arts Minister. "Again a great dramatist and national award leaves us. Mr. Egon Wolff thank you very much for the immense contribution to Chilean theater, "said Secretary of State in his Twitter account, and added:" Author of "The Invaders" masterpiece of the national theater. A large of our tables has left us. All our love to his family. "

In 2013, Wolff won the National Award for Arts and Audiovisual Representation of Chile.

The playwright, a chemical engineer by profession, is the author of about twenty books, including paper flowers, owls Mansion and The Raft of the Medusa. The original version of The invaders, in 1963, was directed by Victor Jara and Tennyson Ferrada and Belgium Castro in his cast, he had a fierce controversy over the portrait of class antagonism presented. In total, his works have been mounted in some thirty countries.

Wolff completed the race of Chemical Engineering at UC, and even worked on the study of Chilean seaweed, but before long ill with tuberculosis and had to settle in Quilpué, where he met actor Chilean theater Eugenio Guzman, who in those years starred Arthur Miller's "death of a salesman". "There I fell in love theater. I went to see ten times, I got texts and a lack of impressive modesty I said I can do this. There I embarked in the theater, "he confessed to Magazine Replica.

The career of playwright took shape in the Experimental Theater of the University of Chile, where Wolff developed a very original style, with twists and where used a constant in several works: repeat the scene at the beginning and end, which gave a special sense to texts.

Belonging to the "Generation 50" with Fernando Cuadra and Sergio Vodanovic, among others, Wolff made his debut with "owls Mansion" (1957) and was very prolific in the early part of his career. In 1970, his book "Paper Flowers" in 1970 received the first prize in the contest House of the Americas in Havana, Cuba, and had versions in the US, Argentina, Mexico, England and France.

Other awards won by Wolff are the First Prize for "Couples Rag" Competition Experimental Theatre at the University of Chile (1959). In 1960 he received a Fulbright scholarship to Yale University with an English assembly of the work "Niñamadre".

Wolff's works address social issues, politics and existentialists contingent components. As the conflict between social classes, -the axis of its work the invaders, and family and generational fractures and social decay.

"My best-known work arises in a period conditioned by a political and social thought, as reflected in The invaders or paper flowers. There was aggressiveness in these works, a protest about how things gave (and still give). But after the death of my wife (1995), I changed the spirit and reconciled me with many things and entered a long period of tolerance, reflected in my latest works. Right now I'm totally reconciled it with the world, "he told in 2011 to La Tercera.

His last works are released Chiaroscuro (1995), after a closed door (2000), Crossroad (2000), after which he secluded himself to devote himself to painting at his home in Calera de Tango. He returned to the forefront with the successful remounting of the invaders in 2012.

http://www.latercera.com/noticia/los-90-anos-fallece-destacado-dramaturgo-egon-wolff/