Florencio Sánchez

Florencio Sánchez was an Uruguayan playwright, journalist and political figure. He is considered one of the founding fathers of theater in the River Plate region of Argentina and Uruguay.

Florencio Sánchez's parents moved him and his eleven siblings to the city of Treinta y Tres and later to Minas, where he attended elementary school. At a very young age, he published a few satirical articles in a newspaper and participated as actor and author in some family musicals (with staged representations).

After abandoning high school, Sánchez alternated his life between Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Rosario. His intense works in journalism and theater unfolded in these cities. In Montevideo he joined the International Center for Social Studies (a literary organization). In Rosario he was a secretary for the writing department of La República ("The Republic"), a publication led by Lisandro de la Torre. His first writings of a social and political nature were published in La República. The critical and scathing realism was apparent in his literary work for the newspaper; this writing style would later characterize his theatrical productions.

Sánchez moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1892, after spending some time in Rosario, a city in Santa Fe, Argentina. He remained there for two years. After his return to Montevideo in 1894, he began working as a journalist for the newspapers El Nacional ("The National"), La Razón ("The Reason"), and El Siglo ("The Century"). He published interviews and wrote political articles in which he incorporated dialogues among the protagonists. In Buenos Aires, he began to make a name for himself as a journalist. He started to participate in intellectual circles and the Buenos Aires night life.

In 1897, when the civil war broke out in Uruguay, he returned to his home country and fought under Aparicio Saravia, thus continuing his family's history of political action. During this phase, he came into contact with intellectuals such as Eduardo Acevedo Díaz. Shortly after his wartime service, his political affiliation with anarchy began. He wrote in La Protesta ("The Protest") and in the magazine El Sol ("The Sun"), the latter being led by Alberto Ghiraldo. Sánchez's plays Ladrones ("Thieves") and Puertas adentro ("Doors Within") were written in the anarchist model.

On August 13, 1903, his first play, M'hijo el dotor ("My son, the doctor"), was performed in the Comedy Theater of Buenos Aires. It was a success, and he followed up with a short but intense period of playwriting, with similar success in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo. These new plays included a farce entitled La gente honesta ("The Honest People") and perhaps his most famous play, Canillita ("The Newspaper Vendor"), both also written in 1903. Canillita has been interpreted by a Spanish operetta company.

With the success of M'hijo el dotor, Sánchez married Catalina Raventos on September 25, 1903, after being in a relationship with her since 1897. His unorganized economic life caused him to sell his plays to several impresarios and theater actors for very little, when he needed money. He frequently accepted advances for plays which he had not yet finished or begun writing, and he sometimes wrote plays hurriedly, giving them away without final revisions.

In 1906, Sánchez settled in La Plata, where he worked for the Office of Anthropometric Identification, which was funded by Juan Vucetich. He contracted tuberculosis, which was spreading rapidly during the late 1880s and early 1900s.

For many years, he had intended to travel to Europe to create a socially and economically successful play. In 1909, he found an opportunity to go and boarded the Italian ship Principe di Udine on September 25, arriving in Genova on October 13. In Italy, he dedicated himself finding a way to connect with the theater companies, for an opportunity to see his plays produced in Spain and France. Upon receiving 3000 francs in 1910 for his play Los muertos