Most sad that Barcelona’s Hogar Extremeño (Extremaduran Centre) was unable to host “Yo soy aquel negrito” last Friday. The show’s title comes from a popular 1956 advertising song for the chocolate drink Cola Cao (check the 1962 cinema ad here), which has “a little negro” from “tropical Africa” singing the song as he works:

Yo soy aquel negrito
del África tropical,
que cultivando cantaba
la canción del Cola Cao.

All terribly unsuitable, but the show apparently uses comic book style to look at the last 50 years of Spanish history, including hot potatoes like immigration, and it looked rather interesting, particularly as theatre groups in Catalonia tend to avoid talking about social reality for fear of losing their access to subsidies and halls.

I’m told that the show didn’t go ahead because the 18 members of the company, Rodetacón Teatro, turned up from Extremadura with their lorry and found that what they thought were the dimensions of the stage were in fact those of the entire hall, which is rather like a small (and exceedingly pleasant) 1920s English parish room. Thereupon they left immediately for Asturias, or something.

I’m not suggesting that numbers pose a particular problem for Extremadurans, but there’s a notice in the Barcelona centre advertising an Arab flamenco dancing course, with two weekly sessions: one on Tuesday from 13:30 to 15:00, and another on Friday from 17:30 to 15:00.

Categories: Les bourgeois, Music, Theatre

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