Writer: Alejandro Postigo
Director: Sergio Maggiolo
Spain is stuck in its fascist history, writer and performer Alejandro Postigo exclaims, and studying Copla is helping him to make sense of his exile. Arriving at The Other Palace, this 70-minute show explores the influence of the Spanish cabaret style, an art form for minorities, attempting first to define what Copla is, how it has infused the way Spain sees the world and its significance to Postigo as both an emblem of his homeland as well as a refuge for alternative identities. Part history lesson, part personal expression, Copla: A Spanish Cabaret is somewhere between musical theatre and lived experience.
Postigo is a perfect cabaret host, chatting with the audience before the performance begins and instantly creating camaraderie in the room, teaching everyone how to clap a Copla beat, and with a mission to bring Copla to the world, the audience in The Other Palace Studio is soon putting their new skills into practice within the opening number. In what becomes as much a teaching session as a performance, there are other opportunities for the viewer to learn along, guessing words and phrases that the Spanish censor replaced with benign alternatives and rounding off with a karaoke singalong, all supported by Postigo’s genial enthusiasm for this subject and its performance.
Copla: A Spanish Cabaret is built around the intersection of two histories, that of the cabaret itself and of Postigo’s growing devotion to the style. We learn of its political origins opposing Spanish fascism and celebrating non-conformity, that Hitler was the first to export Copla beyond Spain with Postigo following in his wake, and how one particular song made its way from Copla performers to English Music Hall, Billie Holliday and Whitney Houston. And the show certainly achieves its aim of spreading the understanding of Copla’s integration into both the political and popular cultural history of the twentieth century.
But the best moments are the very personal ones, where Postigo grounds these factual insights within his own biography to tell a much more compelling story through his own cabaret choices. From amusing anecdotes about singing along to the Spanish translation of The Sound of Music, the divas he adored and a filmed interview with his 101-year-old grandmother who lived through it all, the spine of the show is this quest for self-understanding and the refuge that Copla has provided. And it helps to balance out the performance, moments of light and shade in which Copla is both joy but also a bittersweet reminder of the complexities of identity, a subject that is well conveyed in Postigo’s choices.
Throughout Copla: A Spanish Cabaret, there are plenty of musical performances and references, explanations and demonstrations of the form, most of which will be unknown to any UK audience members. Yet there is an inclusiveness in the approach, in Copla itself, that certainly translates so for Postigo’s quest to spread the Copla word: mission accomplished.
Runs until 26 January 2025