Vaudeville Uruguay

We were invited to attend a night of entertainment Sunday evening. I was still feeling a little under the weather, so I sent Denise on without me. The fusca isn't working well, so we couldn't use it anyway, but the little community center, Club Albatros, where the event was to be held was only a short walk into Salinas. The invitation said the evening would be unforgettable and that proved to be true.

Not knowing what to expect, she was pleasantly surprised that the community center was nicely laid out. It has a basketball court and a complete stage. At about 6 in the evening, they presented an hour long program, that reminded her of "Almost Live", a local skit-based show in Seattle, modeled off of Saturday Night Live. After the show, they moved the chairs to the wall and danced the night away.

A group of youngsters spinning about the stage to a lively song, drew attention to the stage. The program really started with an announcer introducing the scene and then the curtain opened on someone sleeping, a rooster wakes him up and finally the radio began it's 4 daily programs. Each one of the programs had a different format. A lot of writing and acting went into this little production, and it was amazing to see how well they pulled it off. It was quite like a little vaudeville show with sight gags and things being thrown around the stage at will. It is Uruguayans making fun of themselves, attitudes and local customs.

WARNING   The videos that we are posting were taken with a little still camera in video mode. The
quality is limited, not the best sound and when the camera zoomed, the sound dropped out. Normally I would edit these down to a single clip, but really the 4 full clips (about 13 minutes each) were just too good to miss. If you don't speak Spanish, it will not be very interesting. If you do, it will still be hard to understand. But it is truly classic. When Denise played these for me, I just loved them. I hope you look at a few minutes of the show.

Scene One- Wakeup to the Morning Show

Scene Two- The Music Show

Scene Three- The Interview Show

Scene Four- The Inspirational Show