The Crazy Chicken Coop is a comedy in six acts, half fiction, half history, about the life and letters of Madame Francis Calderón de la Barca, who lived in Mexico for two years, as the wife of the first plenipotentiary minister of Spain in Mexico in the first half of the 19th century and published with great success in Boston and London, the book entitled Life in Mexico.
A taste of The Crazy Chicken Coop
Listen to the excerpt From the grave to the operahappened on January 18, 1840 in Mexico, narrated by the actress Claudia Contreras in the voice of Madame Calderón de la Barca, a stubborn, funny, sarcastic and witty woman.
One of the anecdotes is too original to be missed. An eminent lady having died in Mexico, her relatives undertook to entrust her to her last resting place, attired according to the then prevailing fashion, in her most magnificent dress, the one she had worn at her wedding. This dress was a marvel of luxury, even in Mexico. It was made entirely of the finest lace, and the ruffles of a kind of knitting that cost fifty pesos a rod. There was no other like it. It was also decorated and wound in certain parts with ribbon bows very richly embroidered in gold. In this dress, the Countess was placed in her coffin. Thousands of her dear friends turned out to see her beautiful death costumeand finally it was placed in his tomb, whose key was entrusted to the sacristan”.
From the tomb to the opera there is a very abrupt transition; however, both have their part in this story.”
A company of French dancers of the twentieth category appeared in Mexico, and the principal dancer was a French maiden, remarkable for the brevity of her garments, for her coquetry, and for her astonishing pirouettes. On the night of the public’s favorite ballet, Mademoiselle Pauline made her entrance in a succession of pirouettes and, rising on tiptoe, looked around her for approval, when a sudden shudder of horror, accompanied by a murmur of indignation, swept through the crowd. The principal dancer wore the same dress in which the late countess had been buried. Lace, pointed ruffles, golden ribbons; impossible to confuse the clothing. She had hardly lowered the curtain, when the little dancer found herself surrounded by the authorities, questioning her as to where and how she had obtained her dress”.
She replied that she had bought it at an extravagant price from a Dressmaker French in the city He hadn’t looted any tombs, but he honestly paid ounces of gold in exchange for his rightful ownership. To the you fashioned They were the bailiffs. She also pleaded not guilty. An unknown man had sold it to him. By dint of further investigation, the man was identified as the sacristan of a nearby church. A very short-sighted sacristan! He was arrested and thrown into jail. However, a benefit resulted from his greed. To avoid the temptation of the future sacristans, it became customary, after the body had been for a time wearing magnificent garments, to replace these with a simple dress before placing the coffin in the vault. A poor vanity after all!”
Discover more stories from those times by listening to El Gallinero Descabellado on Spotify or at TeatroDeLaVida.com
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