I attended a puppetry festival in Irapuato, a town in the state of Guanajuato, northwest of Mexico City. Many of the performers had participated in puppet theatre workshops for librarians, taught by puppeteers. Because this research focuses on all the communication used in all levels of involvement in puppetry from beginner to professional, this small festival was an ideal research site.
The festival's locales were in several spots across the city, which meant either navigating our way around by local transport or watching the shows in only on location. My traveling partner Caro and I ultimately decided to focus on the shows in the cultural center across from the church and withing walking distance of our hotel. Cultural centers hosting shows and workshops in the arts seem to be present in even small towns in Mexico. The free shows here entertained families who sat on mats on the floor or in folding chairs in center's in the open air foyer. |
I scribbled notes during the shows. One note I wrote: Shows mostly focus on traditional themes and don't question. But I was surprised as the performances went on, that the questions were just presented in ways I wasn't expecting.
The show "Maria Angula", for example, begins with the wedding of "the most beautiful woman in Irapuato, Maria Angula!" She marries a man, and then sets out to make him happy at the dinner table he never seems to leave. He demands roast chicken, and she asks the audience in quivering voice, "Does anyone know how to make roast chicken?" Then she sneaks out to her friend's house - which has been ingeniously constructed as a flip-up flap beneath the table - and her friend gives her the recipe. Play this out three times* and you have a very traditional show that families feel involved in for its familiarity. |
I scribbled notes about lack of protest because the demands of the husband in the show are never openly protested. Maria never shouts, "Make your own pozole, you brute! I've cooked enough for you today!" But it is after the traditional three repetitions of his demands that things get interesting. She grows frantic as he demands dishes that are more and more difficult to make. His fourth or fifth order is for tripa, but she can't find any tripe. Instead of telling him no at last, she goes to the graveyard, digs up the corpse of a man, pries open his coffin, and cuts out his intestines. The intestines trail behind her as she heads back to a kitchen, cooks it up, and feeds it to her husband. Later, the wild-haired, hollow-eyed corpse with his sliced intestine trailing hunts her down in her bed and stiffly drags her back to the cemetery and into his coffin. When she emerges she is also wild-haired and hollow-eyed, and at the end she dances to Michael Jackson's Thriller accompanied by skeletons of other muertos.
Traditional to the point of absurdity and very aware of it. This is one face of Mexico.
Traditional to the point of absurdity and very aware of it. This is one face of Mexico.
*Humorous puppet shows often repeat a theme three times. Repetition makes the theme easier to follow no matter who is in the audience, i.e. children at a library or drunkards at a raucous festival.