User:NaomiPalasi/sandbox

The dances of that genuine fusion establishment were that popular that stayed forever/ were immortalised in some verses like the ones from the habanera whose chorus advised:

Don’t take me to Paul,

there dad will see me.

Take me to Capellanes

I’m certain

there he won’t go.

The establishment whose reputation remained quite a while dubious, ended up becoming a small theatre with a 400-people capacity (which eventually would be extended to 600). The chroniclers Pedro de Répide and Ángel Fernández de los Ríos agree on the fact that in 1876, Capellanes little theatre changed its name to Teatro de la Risa (Theatre of Laugh/ Laugh’s Theatre).

In the same period of the last quarter of the 19th century, among the establishments which preceded and relayed Capellanes Lounge, Paul Theatre and Circus was without a doubt the most famous and popular. In the rear of these two classics of Madrid cafe- theatres history, we can name the little cathedrals of the género chico (Spanish genre of short, light plays with music) which were Iris cafe, Colón cafe, Novedades cafe, Cármen cafe, Artistas cafe (Artists’ cafe), Eslava cafe, Embajadores cafe (Embassadors’ cafe), or the unique Recreo cafe. Other establishments which worked at some point of their existence as a cafe-theatres and can be mentioned here are: Lozoya cafe in calle San Bernardo, San Isidro cafe in calle Toledo, Steam cafe in Las Salesas, San Marcial cafe, San Fernando cafe and San Francisco cafe, South cafe and Friendship cafe, Calderón de la Barca cafe and Spain café, Morella café, Industry cafe, and a fairly long list.

20th Century

The first third of the 20th century didn’t impose barely variations in the 19th/ previous century cafe-theatre model. The sainetes (one-act farce), and another simple staging of the named género chico, take up their modest stages spreding their influence until the end of the 1950s. The contemporary kinf of cafe-theatres appeared from 1961 on, following Parisian models like La Vielle Grielle or Le Royal and came into being in establishments like the Lady Pepa, opened in the capital of Spain by Concha Llorca in 1967, staging Enrique Bariego’s work, Esperando a Godofredo (wating for Godofredo), a ridiculous version of the clever Esperando a Godot of Samuel Beckett). In the last years of the Franco period, Lady Pepa was followed by other establishments (influenced occasionally by that term society’s concern), like: El Buho Rojo (The Red Owl), Ismael, El biombo Chino, La Boite del Pintor, La Fontana, Morrison, Micheleta, Le Canotier, Stéfanis, Bong-Bing or Martin’s.