[REF: SUPPRESSED, Vol. 4, No. 1, February, 1957, PP.
24-25, 64]
CUBA'S LURE-LEGALIZED FILTH!
By: Richard Skylar
Page 24
A CUBAN has cracked the G-String Barrier. For $1.25 in
Havana's
Shanghai Theater you can watch impresario Jose Orozco Garcia
rip away
the last clinging shred between the stripper an the solarium
to show
you birthday suit burlesque. While police look the
other way, he
serves you a main dish of six totally stripped senoritas and
then
spices it to your taste with raw film footage salvaged from
the stag
party censor's wastebasket and a peppery ‘legitimate' play
that pales
Broadway's bawdiest presentations.
SIZZLING SEX TRAP
If you're a decent guy from Omaha, showing his best girl the
sights of
Havana, and you make the mistake of entering the Shanghai,
you'll curse
Garcia and will want to wring his neck for corrupting the
morals of
your sweet baby. If you're a school marm from Vermont
and you
blunder into this three act scorcher, you'll cry out against
the
authorities who allowed your eyes to witness this
debauchery. If you're
an American mother whose boys have splurged a week's salary
on plane
fare to Havana to see girls bare their all for six bits,
you'll ask our
State Department what kind of good neighbor policy allows
such goings
on within 60 minutes of the continental United States.
Even an American burlesque queen would be shocked by the
goings off at
the Shanghai. Whenever show business in continental
America
tangles with sex, decency demands a passion plug between the
glistening
eyes of the audience and the female flesh on stage. If
it isn't a
dim rose spotlight to give you eyestrain instead of a lift,
then, it's
spangles on flesh tinted tights. But this show is a
strip without
a tease. By contrast to Garcia, Harold Minsky is a
temperance
crusader.
S.R.O. EVERY NIGHT
Yet the show goes on and if you ask a Cuban official about
it he'll
just shrug his shoulders. As far as he is concerned
the Shanghai
doesn't exist because it never advertises. Its
Page 25
local clientele come on a strictly word-of-mouth
recommendation.
And Americans wander in because it's just a shockingly short
walk from
Havana's most respectable downtown shopping street.
Those who
know arrive early for good seats. Others often find
only balcony
seating available for the first or 9:30 P.M. show. The
downstairs
sellout is real because even a ten peso tip (the full $10.00
in
American scratch) won't get you a closeup. Many wait
it out for
the 11:30 performance, settling for nothing less than fifth
row center.
For those Yankees who haven't the patience to stand in a
Loews' lobby
for ten minutes the two hour wait is almost beyond
endurance.
Their reward is an orchestra vantage point crammed with
close to a
thousand people in creaking, uncomfortable chairs. The
atmosphere
in the Shanghai theater is close, extremely hot, with an air
of tense
expectation. For anything other than the promised
theatrics the
place would be unbearable to an audience.
By the time you're running short on oxygen, the curtain goes
up on
scene one. This is the first act of the stage
lay. What's
lacking in professional scenery is made up for by the
emoting of the
actresses. One's only regret is that high school
Spanish never
gets around to the vividly picturesque Spanish slang with
its double
meanings. At least half the dialogue never saw the
inside of a
respectable English-Spanish dictionary. But the most
primitive
human impulses speak a universal language. The risqué
caresses
and the real meanings behind the gestures don't need any
translator. When the swarthy leading man spreads his
serape on a
couch and expertly maneuvers his paramour across the room,
it's the
same international incident in any land.
[To see a full size photo, right click and VIEW IMAGE]
[Caption] Routines at the Shanghai exceed the limits set
by their
U.S. counterparts. Since sex is an international
commodity, the
language is no barrier.
LEWD PLAY
The cast keeps the acting broad and simple. Whether
this is a
gesture to the language barrier separating them from the
Americans in
the audience, or because they have reached the limits of
their talent,
doesn't really matter. Picture a standard Stateside
burlesque
skit that begins at the point where you'd normally
expect a
blushing blackout and you have the play at the Shanghai.
Still, a guise of restraint and pseudo-righteousness during
this first
seething scene holds the chafing audience in check.
The show
follows the oldest rule of exciting drama: a slow build to
each
finale. And there are many. The first act
curtain comes
down, without warning, right in the middle of a scene.
Almost at
once Latin dance rhythms blare through the theater.
The action of
the play is forgotten as a six-girl line takes to the stage
and jogs
across the boards. The musical revue is under way.
SIX RAW STRIPS
What they do cannot be called choreography. There are
six
uncoordinated solo performances going on at the same time
and you don't
know where to look first. With none of the subtlety of
an
American stripper and no expensive specialty
(Continued on page 64)
Page 64
costumes that come apart at the touch of a snapper, these
Cuban girls
put on a show that beats any tease dancer with her phony
frills and
fans for excitement.
A little plump one concentrates most of her efforts on
struggling out
of a tight sheath skirt. The top-heavy brunette in the
middle
works almost exclusively from the waist up. With the
outer
drapery shed, they get down to essentials. Here the
very poverty
of the performers gives the show an unexpected lift.
Because they
can't afford the lavish finery of expensive costumed under-
things,
these girls wear what seem to be their street undies for
costumes.
EVERYTHING GOES!
Item by item the flimsy under-garments disappear until the
spectators
behold a dizzy picture of completely naked women gyrating,
bumping and
twisting in a way that drops all theatrical pretense and
concentrates
on thrusting the impulses of nature alone across the
Shanghai
footlights. Like a nudist camp gone berserk they throw
themselves
nearer and nearer to the customers until a frenzied pace is
reached.
Then, as if to spare the hearts of the older members of the
audience,
the curtain closes mercifully on the fast-moving
spectacle. While
you're still wiping away the perspiration the curtain rises
again and
you find yourself back once more to the play that opened the
festivities. Only now it's act two. Of course
everyone has
forgotten what happened in the first act but nobody seems to
care. Now there is a new love scene, another conquest
and the act
is over almost before it begins.
PORNOGRAPHIC FILMS
But the piece of resistance is yet to come. There is
that aspect
of life that no theater, no matter how risqué, dares to show
in
the flesh. The most intimate relationships between men
and women
in their more unguarded moments simply cannot be displayed
at a public
theater that openly admits anyone who buys a ticket.
This would
be inviting a riot.
The lights dim and motion picture screen appears. You
are spared
nothing. You recognize the films as refugees from
fraternal
organization stag parties–the sort which leave you with the
feeling of,
"Well, now I've seen everything!"
Only after you leave the theater will you realize that most
of the
girls in the live revue just didn't size up in looks or
figure to the
showgirls back home. That's because the Shanghai has
the toughest
casting problem on earth. Even in Cuba where poor farm
families
drive their girls to the city to earn a living and where a
fiancé will permit his intended bride to enter into shady
and
illicit practices for a year to finance a trousseau, most of
them draw
the line when it comes to appearing at the Shanghai Theater.
End of Page
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