Comino Vence al Diablo and Other Terrifying Episodes: Teatro Guiñol’s Itinerant Puppet Theater in 1930s Mexico

A hush fell over the gathering of fidgety kindergarteners on a May morning in 1934 in an Ixtapalapa schoolyard, as stage curtains drew apart to reveal an animated stereotypically black hand puppet (El Negrito) laboriously hauling firewood back and forth at the behest of his patrón. El Negrito complained about his plight, and the children’s eyes widened with terror, reflecting the fear demonstrated by the puppet when the patrón threatened the arrival of the devil if he did not keep working. Enter Comino, a cheeky young boy puppet, whose grandmother, accusing him of slothfulness, had brought him to the patrón to learn some work ethic. A devil puppet loomed large on the makeshift stage, bellowing out vague threats. Two kindergarteners burst into tears. Not wanting to disturb the rest of the captive audience, the teacher removed the terrified girls and brought them around to the back of the stage so that they could see the puppeteers manipulating the cloth, felt and wooden dolls. Despite her efforts, the girls remained inconsolable and refused to watch the rest of the show.

Back on stage, Comino announced that he was not afraid of the devil and, roping in an unconvinced Negrito, set out to prove it with violence. El Negrito and Comino spent the remaining acts brandishing sticks, eventually finding the elusive devil and knocking him senseless. The devil’s mask slipped off to reveal none other than the labor-exploiting patrón. The curtain closed on a smug Comino and relieved Negrito looking on as the patrón lugged his own firewood across the stage.¹

The play, entitled Comino Overcomes the Devil (Comino vence al diablo), formed a staple of the Fine Arts Department (Departamento de Bellas Artes) of the Ministry of Education’s (SEP) itinerant puppet theater repertoire Teatro Guiñol in the 1930s.² It appeared alone or alongside other proletarian-themed puppet scripts in widely distributed publications of the SEP.³ Government-sponsored itinerant puppet shows in the 1930s reflected both the optimism and the bureaucratic stumbling blocks that marked revolutionary nation-building efforts. In the case of Teatro Guiñol, government officials and members of the intellectual bourgeoisie constructed an aspect of children’s culture that they hoped could be universally distributed and uniformly received. Yet evidence indicates that in the process, children took an active role in their socialization, and were not simply passive recipients of revolutionary education projects.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Mexico experienced an optimistic period of cultural transformation and the implementation of reforms outlined in the Constitution of 1917, a product of the revolution. Recent literature examines the contradictions and successes characteristic of these nation-building decades, and the competing ideologies proffered by the modernizing government officials and the faith-based reformers.⁴ Cultural projects designed to educate and socialize children during these years provide evidence of this dynamic, and go further to highlight fissures in the not quite monolithic regime as bureaucratization and institutionalization tempered the independence and artistic license of revolutionary ideologues. Walter Benjamin noted that the Bolshevik Revolution had no sooner planted its Red flag then it turned its attention to the children; likewise, one of the first organized activities to unite sectors of Mexican government and civil societies in the aftermath of major battles was the 1921 First Mexican Child Congress, in which professionals and educators diagnosed and mapped out the future of the nation’s revolutionary generation. ⁵

Much historiographical treatment of the cultural revolution has emphasized socializing children.⁶ Yet recent scholarship demonstrates the ways that, on a local level, cultural projects were mitigated by both individual and community interpretations; top-down efforts to exercise control in the education sector conformed to local understandings, resulting in a dialogue between ruling government officials and the community.⁷ Individuals imagined what it meant to be part of a nation based on their reception of these cultural projects, and children also experienced the real and virtual expansion of the worldview facilitated by government-funded mass media...