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Comino Vence al Diablo and Other Terrifying Episodes: Teatro Guiñol's Itinerant Puppet Theater in 1930s Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Elena Jackson Albarrán
Elena Jackson Albarrán*
Affiliation:
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
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Extract

Ahush fell over the gathering of fidgety kindergarteners on a May morning in 1934 in an Ixtapalapa schoolyard, as stage curtains drew apart to reveal an animated stereotypically black hand puppet (El Negrito) laboriously hauling firewood back and forth at the behest of his patrón. El Negrito complained about his plight, and the children's eyes widened with terror, reflecting the fear demonstrated by the puppet when the patrón threatened the arrival of the Devil if he did not keep working. Enter Comino, a cheeky young boy puppet, whose grandmother, accusing him of slothfulness, had brought him to the patrón to learn some work ethic. A Devil puppet loomed large on the makeshift stage, bellowing out vague threats. Two kindergarteners burst into tears. Not wanting to disturb the rest of the captive audience, the teacher removed the terrified girls and brought them around to the back of the stage so that they could see the puppeteers manipulating the cloth, felt and wooden dolls. Despite her efforts, the girls remained inconsolable and refused to watch the rest of the show.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , January 2011 , pp. 355 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2011

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References

I am grateful to the PEO Foundation and to the Marshall Foundation for supporting the research that led to the publication of this article. I thank the staff at the Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública in Mexico City for their tireless efforts, Francisca Miranda for directing me to the children’s images, and the editorial staff and anonymous reader for The Americas for providing concise feedback.

1. Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (AHSEP), Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro 1932–1936, Caja 71, Exp. “Teatro del Niño,” 1934.

2. Also sometimes written as Teatro Guignol. The name Guiñol comes from a prodigious Italian puppeteer in the early 19th century, named either Guignol or Chignol, reportedly responsible for the popularity of puppet theater expressly for children throughout Europe. The makeshift stage itself soon became known as teatro guignol. Lago, Roberto Teatro Guignol Mexicano, 3d. ed. (México: Federación Editorial Mexicana, S.A., 1987), p. 15.Google Scholar

3. Comino vence al diablo appears first ¡n an anthology of three plays by Arzubide, Germán List Tres comedias infantiles para Teatro Guignol (Mexico: Departamento de Bellas Artes, 1936). The play also appears in El Maestro Rural Tomo XI, No. 10 (October 1938), pp. 20–21, 25.Google Scholar

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19. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 71, Exp. 43, 1934.

20. Memoria de la SEP, Tomo I (1933), p. 121.

21. Época de oro, 2005.

22. For a summary of the evolution of Teatro Guiñol as well as a complete bibliography and select images of the puppets and puppeteers, see Época de oro. The puppets earned international acclaim fairly early on; one letter from a schoolteacher in Madrid requested more information about the “saladísimos muñecos“ that have captured the imaginations of Mexican children, and sought guidance on how to replicate the experiment in his own primary school classrooms. AHSEP Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 72, Exp. 56, 1934.

23. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro 1932–1936, Caja 71, Exp. 43. Music was an important part of the plays; every play started off with a musical prelude, often recognizable as folkloric, of popular pieces such as “La bamba,” “El jarabe tapatío,” and “La bicicleta.” Silvestre Revueltas, who at the inception of Teatro Guiñol was the director of the National Conservatory, composed some original pieces, such as “El renacuajo paseador,” specifically for the puppet shows. Época de oro.

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27. Boletín de la SEP, Tomo I, No. 4 (1923), pp. 83–85.

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30. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Publicaciones, Caja 64, Exp. 41, 1935.

31. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro 1932–1936, Caja 71, Exp. “Teatro del Niño,” 1934.

32. The relationship between these congresses and feminism is outlined in Guy, Donna “The Pan-American Child Congresses, 1916–1947,” Journal of Family History 23:3 (July 1998), pp. 272–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Memoria del Primer Congreso Mexicano del Niño (México: El Universal, 1921).

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41. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro 1932–1936, Caja 71, Exp. “Teatro del Niño,” 1934.

42. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 4949, 1934.

43. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 73, Exp. 57, 1936.

44. Many requests from teachers can be found in AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 72, Exp. 56, 1934.

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47. The magazine was intended to link the SEP to both rural schoolteachers and newly literate campesinos. El Maestro Rural was also circulated among Mexican schoolteachers working in the US, and throughout South America and the Caribbean. In 1936, Cárdenas changed the goals of the magazine so that it targeted primarily an audience of rural schoolteachers. Palacios, Guillermo ”Postrevolutionary Intellectuals, Rural Readings, and the Shaping of the ‘Peasant Problem’ in Mexico: El Maestro Rural, 1932–1934,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (May 1998), pp. 309–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. For examples of the impact that El Maestro Rural borc on the morale and sense of integration of rural schoolteachers, see their letters to the editor in El Maestro Rural, Tomo VI, no. 1 (January 1935), pp. 38–39.

49. “Trabajos de Teatro Infantil,” El Maestro Rural, Tomo IX, No. 4 (September 1936), pp. 38–39; “La construcción del teatro infantil y de títeres,” El Maestro Rural, Tomo IV, No. 12 (June 1934), p. 31.

50. Saavedra, Rafael M. “Instrucciones para orientar y facilitar la creación de la obra de teatro,” El Maestro Rural, Tomo V, No. 3 (August 1934), pp. 25–27.Google Scholar

51. For a discussion of cultural reception of Soviet film in these terms, see Tsivian, Yuri Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception, Trans. Bodger, Alan (London: Routledgc, 1994), pp. 1–12.Google Scholar

52. Memoria de la SEP, Tomo I (1935), p. 35.

53. “Aspiraciones infantiles,” El Maestro Rural, Tomo VI, No. 7 (April 1935), pp. 15–17, 28.

54. El Maestro Rural Tomo VI, no. 7 (April 1935), p. 17.

55. Cárdenas, Epoca de oro.

56. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 71, Exp. 43, 1934.

57. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 71, Exp. “Teatro del Niño,” 1934 and Exp. “Teatro del Niño,” 1936.

58. See the discussion by Stephen E. Lewis in this Special Issue about the reception of puppets in the Mayan Highlands as spiritual advisors.

59. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 4949, 1934.

60. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 4949, 1934.

61. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 71, Exp. “Teatro del Niño,” 1934.

62. AHSEP, Departamento de Bellas Artes, Serie Teatro, Caja 4949, 1934.

63. For a summary of these methods, see Maugard, Adolfo Best Mètodo de dibujo: Tradición, resurgimiento y evolución del arte mexicano, 2nd edition (Mexico: Editorial Viñeta, 1964).Google Scholar

64. Cárdenas, Época de Oro.