Mexican Play Survives the Censors

In one scene, gunmen in the pay of government ministries stalk each other in a deadly contest to win the favor of Mexico’s president. In another, newspaper reporters boast about big official bribes that they accept. At center stage, a plainclothes cop in a public bathroom engages in perverted sex.

Sunnybrook Farm this is not.

The scenes are from Vicente Lenero’s play “Nobody Knows Nothing,” now running at a small Mexico City theater. The production, directed by Luis de Tavira, has created a critical stir for its look at the underside of Mexican political and journalistic life.

It has also attracted the attention of government censors, who tried to cut out parts of the script that appeared to refer to known public figures.

The government canceled the opening-night performance and only permitted the show to go on after forcing changes in the script.

“For instance, the newspaper editor in our play is a woman. Well, there’s only one female editor in Mexico City. So we had to change her sex.”

The censors also eliminated from the production a voice recording of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governs Mexico.

“Also we had to stop playing the national anthem at the end of the show, as is done on Mexican television,” De Tavira said. “This was considered a sacrilege.”

The official explanation for the delay in the production’s opening was something like a line out of the play itself.

“Orders from above,” said officials of the Fine Arts Institute, which, ironically, underwrote the production.

In a short note, the Fine Arts Institute said the play made “references in questionable taste to persons and institutions that deserve our consideration and respect.”

Playwright Lenero objected. “If there is someone who is offended, let them take legal action,” he told Mexican reporters. “The production speaks of political and press corruption and this cannot be considered slander.”

De Tavira agreed. “These people are public personalities and we have every right to deal with them,” said the director in Los Angeles, where he was staging a new opera based on “The Little Prince” at Cal State L.A.

De Tavira was not, however, surprised at the censorship. “Our play is about a reporter who isn’t allowed to tell the truth. This action demonstrates the difficulty of doing so in our country. If Watergate had happened in Mexico, the news simply wouldn’t have gotten out. “

“Nobody Knows Nothing” is one of three productions now playing in Mexico City that take irreverent pokes at Mexican politics. It is perhaps no surprise that the censors are sensitive to possible references to real officials. Mexico’s presidential election is scheduled for Wednesday. Salinas and the PRI, as his party is known, are facing unusually strong opposition.

In the past, censorship of public performances was commonplace, although President Miguel de la Madrid, who is in the last months of his 6-year term, has made it a point to preach openness in the arts and communications. But the practice--and controversy--remains.

The plot of “Nobody Knows Nothing” concerns government attempts to regain missing presidential documents before they are published in a newspaper and create a scandal. The clumsy handling of the censorship gave the play free publicity and has helped to fill the 90-seat theater where it is playing.

“The censors have turned us into a big success,” De Tavira said with a smile.

Even performances that are considered innocuous by usual Mexican standards are being closely watched by the government these days.

Not long ago, borough officials from the Mexico City government tried to change the script of a musical revue called “The Future Is Bald.”

In Mexican slang, bald means difficult and can also refer to a sexual organ--the kind of play on words that typically delights Mexico City vaudeville audiences. PRI candidate Salinas is bald.

Just before “Bald” was scheduled to open, representatives from city government informed writer-actor Enrique Alonzo that the show offended public morals.

“For a few days, we lived in uncertainty,” said Alonzo. “They were saying our show was unfit for children and the dead.”

The government wanted Alonzo to delete from the script a verbal imitation of Ramon Aguirre, the Mexico City mayor, whose voice has been publicly likened to Donald Duck’s. In addition, the censors asked that ridicule of the government’s wage and price control program be eliminated.

Alonzo, who has 40 years of experience on the Mexico City stage, refused. The government, already widely criticized for its handling of “Nobody Knows Nothing,” backed down.

“One has to push to the limits. Eventually, of course, the ax will fall,” said German Dehesa, a writer who puts on satirical comedies almost all year-round.

Dehesa is now starring in a show called “Tapadeus.” The title is a pun on the Mexican presidential style of anointing one’s own successor, which is called here a desta p e , or unveiling.

Dehesa’s play deals with preparations for a visit by Salinas to a small Mexican town. PRI officials are depicted as overbearing bullies who stop at nothing to create a showy welcome for the candidate.

They empty the town’s only hotel of tourists in order to fill it with PRI officials. They arrange to have schoolchildren spell out Salinas’ name with papayas, the town’s only product. They give a papaya concession owned by native Aztecs to rich businessmen to gain the support of the wealthy.

In “Tapadeus,” Dehesa does something few stage artists dare. He struts across the stage during the grand finale in imitation of Salinas, with a bald pate, enlarged ears and Groucho Marx mustache. Dehesa says his show has not faced censorship, but not because of government tolerance.

“I reach an audience that is small,” he said. His dinner theater seats only 75 people. Censorship is more of a problem on television (for which Dehesa also writes and acts) because of its potential to reach millions.

There is special care not to permit the satirizing of individual officials on television where, he said, “you can be almost anything but specific.”

“I suppose we should be flattered,” said De Tavira. “The government used to consider theater not very important. I’m glad to see them finally paying some attention to it.”

Dan Sullivan in Los Angeles contributed to this article.