Appearances: The Sub-Versions of "Cúcara y Mácara"

Abstract

On June 28, 1981, the play being performed at the Juan Ruiz de Alarc?n Theater in Mexico City was Cucara y Macara, a work whose entire character was to change during that performance. The play, by Oscar Liera, fiercely satirizes the clergy and the church on the basis of a plot that recalls the history of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Previous to June 28, this latter aspect in particular had provoked protests, and spectators had frequently shouted Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe during performances followed, at the end, by the singing of the Himno Guadalupano. Uninformed members of the audience, assuming this extracurricular activity to be a part of the play itself, often joined in and gleefully shouted and sang along. Given these antecedents, then, no one was alarmed on the evening of June 28, when some thirty spectators rose from their seats in the first two rows and climbed onto the stage at the beginning of the second act. In fact, many accounts of the events that followed specifically mention the lack of any initial reaction: El p?blico asistente no daba cr?dito a lo que ve?a, ya que en un principio crey? que el ataque era parte de la obra (Alfaro 21). Those thirty spectators, however, then proceeded to take out pipes and sticks which they used to beat the director and the members of the cast for several minutes before