More than a thousand spectators per day - according to quite moderate calculations -, shows for different audiences, diverse poetics, multiple stylistic paths... The XX Havana Theater Festival is a reality. The main theaters of the Havana circuit host performances from various provinces of the country, in a program that also includes international proposals.

And the public has answered, almost all rooms have been full. It’s the confirmation of the worthiness of a bet. It was necessary to defend the celebration of the Festival, despite all obstacles of present day. In difficult times, theater is light.

Back to the Classics

Several of the performances that were staged this weekend are based on indisputable references of universal theater or literature. Teatro Andante, for example, recreates the famous Alice in Wonderland, to multiply the character on the scene and offer an incisive vision of contemporary times. Here we reflect on the need for hope in times of crisis. The title already raises the issue: Why Alice? The work created by Teatro Andante in the midst of the pandemic, as a final exercise for three students from the Manuel Muñoz Cedeño Academy. The performances took place at Hubert de Blanck room.

The actress and playwright María Laura Germán proposed an exercise in inspired intimacy at the Raquel Revuelta theater with I want, a performance that touches on pressing and, at the same time, timeless matters. It’s based on three characters that have marked entire generations of children and adolescents: Dorothy, Peter Pan, and Pippi Longstockings. In these stories, of largely emancipated minors, there are disturbing seeds of conflict. It may seem funny, for example, for a girl to live alone with a horse and a monkey... but how should she deal with the challenges of the world around her? And that is just one of the aspects.

And speaking of emblematic characters, Teatro de la Rosa deals with one of the hero prototypes: Achilles, half man, half god. Roxana Pineda puts him before the mirror in a diaphanous staging, structured from cleanliness and essentiality, with a marked plastic art calling and very delicate craftsmanship. Achilles in front of the mirror operates from the confrontation of feelings that seem to overwhelm the hero: the imposition of killing in a war, the need to love... and the terrible confluence of the two circumstances. The actor embodies a being in permanent struggle with himself, full of emotions, a spirit captured in a lyrical body. It was presented at the headquarters of El ciervo encantado.

The Theater is Thought

The theater is thought: it’s the idea of the theoretical meeting that’s based in the Villena room at Uneac. The first of the sessions was dedicated to the artistic career of one of the great founders of Cuban theater of the second half of the 20th century: the actor and director Sergio Corrieri, to whom this Festival pays tribute. With Teatro Estudio and Teatro Escambray, Corrieri worked from the great classics of the universal scene to an exercise linked to the culture, the needs, the contradictions of peasants, with pieces that renewed patterns of interaction between the performances and their audiences. Friends and family, co-workers, critics, and researchers highlighted contributions, evoked milestones, and referred to aspects of the work of the famous Cuban artist and promoter, in a day in which the book Sergio Corrieri: Beyond memories, was presented by Luisa Marisy.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff