The entrance to Shanghai. Photo: Film Our Man in Havana.
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The Havana chronicle is full of black holes. There is a whole story about the Tropicana cabaret and detailed stories about the Floridita bar. And it is only fair that they are praised for what they were and still are. However, a cabaret like Sans Souci, a first-rate establishment in the Havana night before 1959, is hardly talked about. It is not only about a place that is no longer, but its history seems irretrievably lost. The Shanghai theater belongs to that category.
The first thing that should be clarified is that that coliseum on 205 Zanja street – where the park dedicated to Confucius is now – presented, and so it was read on its marquee, a “frivolous and picaresque” show. He specified in his claim: “Everything as in Paris”, with which, writes the musicgrapher Cristóbal Díaz Ayala, “whoever had never been to Paris would lose the desire to visit the capital of France forever”.
Its programming was part of the Cuban tradition of bufo. More than a pornographic theater, Díaz Ayala defines it as a scene of bad words and naked fat showgirls. The billboard advertised “artistic nudes and danceable nudists”, but the usual thing was five or six choristers naked or barely covered by a light gauze that remained static in the scene for a minute or two before the curtain fell.
The nude in Shanghai was always feminine and the sexual act was never staged, but its hint: a woman, while flirting with a man, took off her clothes up to her pantyhose. From there it did not happen. Or two or more choristers stripped to the beat of a rumba and the curtain fell slowly when they had already stripped off the last piece. At some point pornographic films were screened. The homosexual was not a fixed type in the putting. A number like that of Superman, that character who wore his enormous manhood on stage and who apparently fornicated without fatigue, was never staged in Shanghai, but in the room of a brothel in the tolerance neighborhood of Pajarito and always before a small audience who paid a high fee to witness it.
Shanghai did not exploit the political issue. The sexual theme was enough in his works. Although none of the works that it exhibited should have been anything of the other Thursday, its programming changed often and the premieres followed one another frequently, as, for example, it is clear from the advertisements inserted on the billboard of the Prensa Libre newspaper in its editions for July-August 1949. There were performances from Monday to Saturday, at 8:30 and 11:30 at night, and also at 3 in the afternoon, on Sundays. From time to time there were special performances at midnight. Never anything exceptional; some premiere, usually. Loves in Varadero, The artificial woman, My husband, the other and I, and Male or female, they were the titles of some of those works. The names of the authors were never mentioned in the newspaper advertisements or on the billboard that was placed in the theater itself.
Few photos of Shanghai are preserved. The public did not enter through Zanja, but through Manrique. The ticket office and the entrance door are on the left side of the building’s façade. From there you went down a corridor, where pornographic books and nude magazines were sold. The lunetario was to the right. There was a first floor or gathering. A peso was paid to access the stalls, and forty cents for the box office.
The audience, for the most part, was Cuban. As in the Alhambra theater, the performances were for men only. The best of his repertoire was the parody of Don Juan Tenorio, by Zorrilla, which was brought to the stage, in an inevitable way, every second of November, Day of the Faithful Dead. The orchestra was made up of piano, drums, trumpet, violins and one or two other instruments. One of the violinists was nicknamed Pumpkin. Outstanding actors from Shanghai were Chino Wong and Armando Bringuier – Old Man Bringuier – who also performed successfully on radio, TV and other theaters.
The rumbera Cuquita Carballo was snatched up in her presentations – and she never undressed on the scene. They appeared at the Regalías Cabaret, CMQ Television’s star program and shows by the Sierra and Bambú Club cabarets. He started very young as part of the cast of the Santos y Artigas circus, which opened all the doors for him. A very complete artist who also worked for the radio and recorded several long-playing albums.
Very celebrated was his interpretation of Flor Canela, by the Puerto Rican Bobby Capó. He was among the artistic talents entertaining the American military in the days of World War II and was awarded a decoration by the Washington government for this. As a star she was very popular in Spain and was applauded in almost all of South America. In Brazil, where he filmed many movies, a street in Rio de Janeiro bears his name.
There was a very intense public participation in Shanghai. On one occasion, when a champagne toast was being made on the scene, a spectator at the gathering broke out shouting that they were toasting not with champagne, but with Materva, a yellow soda. The actors tried to advance with the libretto, but the laughter of the public and the shouts of the importunate were not allowed. They were about to turn on the lights to put an end to the disorder, when Tobita, the black of the company, advanced to the stage and, addressing the intruder, glass in hand, shouted:
-Of course it’s Materva… for forty kilos that you paid up front, what the… did you want? Real champagne?
The theater collapsed to the applause.
See also:
Western clubs, remember?
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