As you know, burlesque is part of the popular entertainment in a lot of countries, but let's take a look on the beginnings of popular spectacles in a distant place: Mexico.
It might seem impossible but there was a time when Mexico had one million inhabitants. They used the tram and buses which charged eight cents.
Commercial radio was booming, 'talkies' were wonderful but in another language, with subtitles that the Mexican people (pueblo) could not read. Therefore, cinema was for high classes.
That is why the pueblo found refuge and happiness in the carpas (carpas: makeshift tents mounted in abandoned lands where shows where performed to the taste of the masses in the same tradition as the circus).
Before the carpas, México did not have its own spectacle. The entertainment that existed at that time dealt with themes which had no connection with the working class masses and were presented in expensive venues. During the revolution, theaters and circuses were closed leaving the question of where would people go to be entertained?
The pueblo had to create its own spectacle made by artists who once worked at the circuses and the big theaters, but in very different economical conditions.
The structure of the revista mexicana was copied from the Opera, the Zarzuela, and the Opereta. Using revolutionary songs such as "La Adelita," "Marieta," "La Cucaracha," "La Rielera" and "La Valentina," the actresses and singers became tiples and changed their characters and costumes as needed. The rest of the artists had to change as well; the horseman, now without a horse, became an acrobat; the fine clown became a comedian and the people's spokesperson .
There were realist characters (Chema, Chole, the journalist, the student, the drunk, the General) and symbolic characters (the coin, the street, the bullet, the crisis, justice). I would say that the carpa is the circus' bastard daughter.
The first tiples, in their acts, could joke and ridicule Generals who attended their shows to become popular. Nevertheless, when fazed with the issue of holding power, they would close down the places.
Censorship started, and not content with closing down places, the authorities would jail, beat up and many times even kill performers. Thus, the acts became more musically based rather than politically or socially focused.
Soon acts exalting love for Mexico, the government and national pride started to be shown and the social themes and the combative attitude of the carpa acts disappeared. The public outlet for social criticism which existed from the 1910s to the 1930s, and which represented and criticized every political event affecting Mexico, changed to focus in entertainment.
Here is where burlesque acts started to develop, as well as comic sketches that nowadays are shown on TV, because they do not criticize the government.
In Mexico, we can see cabaret shows full of satire and critic. The great thing is that they really change each day because actors adapt the show to the important things that happen in the country and the world. So each show is new, fresh and hard with the system.
Website Design - TheKitschGoth.co.uk
