¡Dignidad! is Repertorio Español’s arts-in-education program that helps students understand and appreciate theatre.
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Through our Mentorship Program, Repertorio also believes that students can be introduced to careers in the arts such as acting, playwrights, designers, technicians, and administrators.
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CubaTeatro - A Century of Theatre in Cuba |
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CubaTeatro ... from the Alhambra to the Pocket Theatres
After a steady flowering through the 19th Century, Cuban theatre suffered, during the first decades of the 20th Century, an opposite evolution. To that rich century, during which theatrical activity bloomed amazingly for such a small country, and which was enriched by the work of playwrights like Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, José Jacinto Milanés, José María de Heredia and Joaquín Lorenzo Luaces, followed a period of sterility which lasted until the 30's. In those decades, there was only one institution that dominated the Cuban Theatre: The Alhambra Theatre (1900-1935).
Inheriting the "buffo" tradition of the 19th Century, this theatre, at Consulado and Virtudes Streets in Havana, developed a great popular following due to a populist aesthetic, a facile "Cubanism", texts with sexual double meanings and a superficial political satire. Its success, it has to be said, was not due to the librettists - we cannot call them authors- but mainly to the musicians and the actors involved. Around the middle of the 20's, a musical genre became very popular: the Cuban Zarzuela. "Cecilia Valdés", "Amalia Batista", "Rosa La China", "El Cafetal", and "Maria La O" are some of those works, and they are performed in Cuba even now. In opposition to the popular theatre exemplified by the Alhambra, there was the work of José Antonio Ramos (1885-1946), a playwright who created profoundly social plays, in which he touched upon some of the evils that beset the young republic. But Ramos was the exception, an isolated case who failed to establish a true contact with the audience of his period.
A year after the Alhambra roof and part of the orchestra collapsed, Luis A. Baralt founded La Cueva, an experimental theatre company, which took the next step in the development of the Cuban Theatre. It lasted only 8 months, but its example created, after 1938, a series of groups and institutions like Patronato del Teatro, ADAD, Teatro Popular, Las Máscaras, Prometeo, Farseros, and the University Theatre, and thus the modernization of the Cuban Theatre began to take place. The audiences were meager and the government indifferent. There was little support, and besides, the inroads made by radio and television, which offered steady salaries (sometimes quite generous) took its toll when actors, directors and technicians abandoned the stage for more lucrative positions.
At that time, to work in the theatre was an heroic enterprise. And it is because of that heroic artistic devotion that theatre activity grew: never before there had been so many groups, (even though some were short-lived); never before had there been so many premieres and of such quality (even though the schedule consisted of one performance only and the audiences were small).
It is at this time that playwrights started writing with certain constancy and persistence. Some had their plays published in magazines (or by themselves) or received prizes at competitions sponsored by the Ministry of Education or institutions like ADAD, Patronato del Teatro and Prometeo. The lucky ones saw their work staged, even if for only one night. Nora Badía, Eduardo Manet, Raúl González de Cascorro, René Buch, Ramón Ferreira and Flora Díaz Parrado were some of the new playwrights.
But the most important figures were Virgilio Piñera, Carlos Felipe and Rolando Ferrer (1925-1976). "Electra Garrigó" by Piñera, "El Chino" by Felipe and Ferrer's "Lila, La Mariposa" became examples of what Cuban dramatic literature could be. New directors also appeared: Francisco Morin, Andrés Castro, Adolfo de Luis; some of whose stagings are still well remembered.
In 1954, an unusual fact changed the direction of our theatre. In a small (and improvised) space in Havana, Sartre's "The Respectful Prostitute" was staged, arena style - and amazingly ran for 102 performances. This meant daily performances, which was what was needed to improve the quality, the professionalism and the craftsmanship of theatre artists. That was the beginning of what is known in Cuba as the period of the pocket theatres (Salitas) which lasted from 1954 to 1958, when a great number of small theatres opened in Havana. This activity was so important, that in 1957 the Asociación de Salas Teatrales was founded. At the end of this period, there were in Havana ten small theatres with 1,900 seats and an audience of about 10,000. At first, performances took place daily, except Thursdays. But later, (more rationally), the schedule was fixed from Thursday to Sunday.
The repertory was very eclectic: European avant-garde plays, Spanish melodramas, sentimental comedies and British and Broadway successes. Cuban plays were not as numerous but new playwrights did appear: Fermín Borges, Anton Arrufat and Matías Montes Huidobro, to name a few.
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