Editor's note: The following story was written as part of a series called "Cheap Thrills" for the Albuquerque Journal. The criteria for these "thrills" are 1) a day-trippable circle roughly 150 miles from Albuquerque and 2) fees of no more than $10. Enjoy.
MADRID -- As every villain knows, evil can be fun.
Each weekend and holiday from Memorial Day through Labor Day, villainy sneers and cackles here on stage at the Engine House Theatre.
It's another summer of "Madrid Melodrama," played by a troupe in alternating productions entitled "Death Rides the Rails" and "The Death and Life of Sneaky Fitch."
Engine House Theatre
Location: Forty-seven miles northeast of Albuquerque, following NM-14 around the backside of the Sandias. For reservations or more information, contact the Engine House Theatre, Madrid, 87010, or call 473-0743. Hours: Every weekend and holiday between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Cost: $6.50 ($5.50 for seniors, $3.50 for children under 12) Features: Melodramatic plays.
I joined the audience for "Rails" one recent Sunday afternoon, and can only report that the play lacked subtlety. But that's the whole point of melodrama, an art form in which no gesture is too broad, no cliche too familiar, no good deed too pure and no vile deed too dastardly.
The Engine House Theatre is part of the Old Coal Mine Museum, adjacent to the Mine Shaft Tavern and Restaurant.
Madrid was a coal-mining town until 1959. When the last mine closed, the town's population dropped from 2,500 to 300 practically overnight. The population fell still further, to only three families, before new people --many of them so-called "hippies" -- started to arrive in the 1970s.
Soon a new vein was tapped -- "There's gold in them thar tourists!" -- and Madrid became an extractive industry of shops, galleries and eateries. Crowded already on a normal summer weekend, on some Sundays Madrid attracts still more people with its series of outdoor blues or jazz concerts at the ballfield on the edge of town.
But enough scene-setting! Let's pay our $6.50 ($5.50 for so-called "seniors," $3.50 for children under 12) and get into the theatre.
It's a large, corrugated metal shed that seats about 80 people.Because it can get warm inside, theater-goers are given paper fans to help keep the air circulating.
The house lights drop, the footlights rise and -- with a fanfare accompaniment from the piano player just to the side of the stage -- the show begins with brief introductory remarks about the nature and etiquette of melodrama.
(The piano player happened to be out sick the day I attended, so technically the melodrama I saw lacked its melo. The prefix comes from "melos," the Greek word for song.)
"Melodrama -- music with drama -- came from France in the 1770's and eventually settled in the West," said Cliff Cato, producer-director, who warmed up the audience for "Rails."
Melodrama relies, Cato said, on "extended gestures, extended emotions. The plots are simple: Wrong versus Right. Good versus Evil. You don't have to wonder, 'What is the underlying plot?' And the characters are clearcut. The villain -- even if he does know right from wrong, he prefers to do the wrong."
Cato went on to demonstrate and lead the audience in practicing what he called "three standard ways to discourage the villain."
First, he explained, there's The Hiss. "You want to sound like a pit full of vipers!"
Traditional Method Number Two, he continued, is "The Boo."
And Three, at least in Madrid: "The anti-villain ballistic missile!"
Also known as marshmallows, these missiles can be bought at the door -- about six marshmallows for 25 cents. (Note: Marshmallow-tossing is encouraged only during performances of "Rail." For performances of "Fitch," marshmallow-tossing is banned.)
The marshmallows should be thrown "to express your extreme displeasure with the villain--and, please, only the villain," Cato told the audience. "Aim for the shoulders and below. These missiles are coated with a fine sugar powder that, if it gets in his eyes, could blind an actor."
After Cato stepped aside, the curtain lifted and we peered into an 1880's drawing room, where heroine (Prudence Hopewell) and her mother (Mrs. Hopewell) would soon encounter both the hero (Truman Pendennis) and the villain (Simon Darkway). The hero's best friend is an upright guy called Harold Stanfast; the villain's henchman answers to the name Dirk Sneath.
In 15 scenes spread over two acts, the melodrama proceeds. The air fills with flying marshmallows each time the villain appears. He bats some of them back at us. Even the "good" characters get pelted with marshmallows -- sometimes accompanied by cries of "Wimp!"
Hisses! Boos! Cheers!
I don't want to reveal the plot. Near the end, however, there's a scene that has the entire audience -- men, women, and children -- shouting at the heroine: "Your skirt! Take off your skirt!"
Does she or doesn't she? Evil just might triumph before the villain has a chance to mutter: "Curses! Foiled again!"
Madrid is about 47 highway miles northeast of Albuquerque, if you follow the Turquoise Trail (NM-14) around the backside of the Sandias. For reservations or more information about the melodramas, contact the Engine House Theatre, Madrid, 87010, or call 473-0743.
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MADRID -- As every villain knows, evil can be fun.
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