130128 travelandleisureindia.intravelandleisureindia.in
Worth Flying For
W
e felt as if we’d travelled through time, and not
just because of the classic car we’d arrived in.
The word Tropicana glowed against
glossy palm fronds, a sign that was part cool
mid-century glamour, part Caribbean fever dream.
The illuminated letters appeared to shiver, as if to
the beat of an unheard rumba. We had reached
Havana’s famed open-air cabaret.
Built in 1939 on the lush, manicured grounds
of a private home, Tropicana was once the only
major Cuban-owned casino in town. After the
revolution, it was among the few allowed to remain
open. Today, ghosts linger in its photo-lined café:
here, Carmen Miranda; there, Paul Robeson.
At the door, my partner was handed a cigar.
I received a single red rose.Through the haze of smoke, I recognised
homages to a few of the legendary numbers
(I was reading Tropicana Nights, the excellent history
of the club) choreographed by Roderico ‘Rodney’
Neyra, a kind of Cuban Bob Fosse, before the
revolution. Showgirls shimmied in large and
elaborate costumes—a chandelier, a coconut tree—
that covered little of their bodies. Tropicana was no
longer the glitzy, high-rolling club of yore. We mixed
our own cocktails using the bottle of Havana Club,
two cans of tuKola, and bucket of ice that came with
our seats. But the cabaret, in all its Technicolor,
tropical Modernism, still transported: a riot of green,
lit by neon, against a starry sky, a chorus of drums
reverberating into the night. Performance tickets
from `^4 ,878; cabaret-tropicana.com — MOLLY MCARDLECABARET TROPICANA in
HAVANA, CUBA
Illustration by Andrea Ferolla130 travelandleisureindia.in