No. 2 - Its Gran Canaria Magazine

38
TOURISM I TURISMO Nº 2
GRAN CANARIA AND
THE GESTATION OF CABARET
Just two years from now, in 2022, it will be the 50th
anniversary of the premiere of the film Cabaret, one
of the finest ever musical masterpieces. Directed
by Bob Fosse in 1972, the script is based on the successful
Cabaret musical, which continues to be a
stage hit around the world. The memorable performance
by Liza Minelli, as Sally Bowles, has left its
mark on both young and old, giving life to the amateur
girl who struggles to survive any way she can
against the advent of Nazism in Berlin. Surely Liza
-like many others- doesn’t know that Sally took her
first tentative literary steps on Las Canteras beach
in the island’s capital city, the place where writer
Christopher Isherwood (England 1904-1986) created
the novel on which her story is based.
‘Goodbye to Berlin’, one of the great British 20th
century novels, alongside ‘Mr. Morris Changes
Trains’, are the works that inspired the Cabaret
musical and later film. In both works, Isherwood
depicts 1930s Berlin, where he picks up on certain
aspects of his life, mainly concerning his homosexuality,
a taboo subject around that time, so they appear
somewhat disguised in the novels. It wasn’t
until 1977 that Isherwood spoke openly about his
sexual tendency, and he did so through the publication
of his book of memoirs entitled ‘Christopher
and His Kind’.
In these fascinating memoirs, the author reveals
that he went to Berlín in search of an openly gay life
which his prudent England prevented him from. It
also divulges his relationships with other homosexual
English writers, citing their full names, as well
as his journeys around Europe and the world, accompanied
by another young man named Heinz,
who became his first true love. In one of these
getaways, and following a stay in Tahiti, the couple
consider where to go next on their trip. “Then -as
he describes in his memoirs- somone suggested
going to the Canary Islands. They were not that far
away, but they did seem, back in 1934, sufficiently
remote for them. At least Christopher could think
of himself as making an escape from Europe; politically
the islands belonged to Spain, even thought
geographically they were part of Africa”.
Once the decision was taken to head to the Canaries,
he continues the story: “At the beginning of
April Christopher and Heinz boarded a Dutch boat
at Rotterdam, which stopped over at Las Palmas,
the largest city in the Canaries, on the island of Gran
Canaria. They stayed over at Towers Strand, a hotel
built in a modern German architectural style next
to the beach. The room was a kind of hut situated
at the top of the building… They had the whole of
the spacious sun roof to sunbathe, with views over
Las Palmas and the volcanic mountains making
up the middle of the island in the background. The
sun’s rays warming up the beach and the ocean,
the heavy clouds hanging over the mountains, the
cocks crowing and the goats grazing on the sunroofs,
smoke billowing out of boats’ chimneys and
cleanly-washed clothes flapping about in the sea
breeze, drunkards curled up asleep against walls
daubed with slogans that forewarned of civil war, at
the time just two years away”.
Sally is born
Apart from the literary value of what is learned
about the general impressions of Isherwood regarding
1930s Canaries, through his writings at the hotel
in Las Canteras, on 23rd May, the author revealed
he had a mental block, that it was not going to be
impossible for him to write as he had expected. Despite
everything, in the safe haven of the beach he
worked on the personalities of the characters who
would be part of the history and literature of films:
“Sally Bowles “lost”, Otto Nowak, the “lost” lad…As
he confronted all his characters and stories, Christopher
was like a civil servant called in to handle a
multitude of immigrants and their belongings. They
waited, in absolute passivity, for him to tell them
where they were going to live and what their occupations
would be...”.
The island peaks, Maspalomas...
Tired of the creative blockage they had got caught
up in, at the beginning of June the couple decided
to take the bus and go and explore the mountains
of Gran Canaria by foot, coming across some amazing
things along the way: “From the bottom of an
extinct crater, which had been turned into fertile
farmland, they ascended slowly up to the edge and
from there they walked along the steep and rugged
peaks as far as the pedestal of a sinister-looking
rock called El Nublo. Apparently impossible to
Playa de Las Canteras en 1930. Archivo Fedac
climb, it had recently been scaled by a group of
Nazi tourists, who had planted a swastika flag on
the top”. Surprised by this finding, and probably
shaking with fear, they continued on their journey
around the island: “The following day they struggled
down a series of what seemed like endless ravines
that finally brought them to the south of the island,
at Maspalomas. A tall, slim lighthouse rose up over
what looked like a tiny piece of the Sahara desert,
transplanted here from the other side of the sea”.
Voyage to other islands
On 6th June the couple left Gran Canaria and headed
off to Tenerife, as: “Christopher believed he could
work there with fewer distractions… ” After finding
lodgings at a hostel called El Pabellón de Troika in
La Orotava, he continued, “It was exciting to know
that they were staying over the hillsides of a volcano
at over 12,000 feet altitude. They had seen it from
the rocky pedestal of the Nublo, rising up over the
cloudy base far away over the ocean. But here the
volcano was too near to be visible. Here they were
merely an atom in the magnificent view that Gran
Canaria offered”.
On 15th August Christopher and Heinz began a
week-long journey around the Canary archipelago’s
three most western islands, namely La Palma,
Gomera and Hierro.
And so, in this climate of mutual understanding, the
couple abandoned the Canaries on 6th September
1934, and soon after, their trip around the world: “A
great voyage by Christopher, the product of the rejection
of his home country and the Challenge of
Practically the Whole World”.