Cuban Drama Today

Abstract

WHATEVER ELSE MAY HAVE BEEN THE RESULTS OF the Cuban Revolution, it has proved to be a volatile force in the theater. Prior to 1959, drama in Cuba was in a precarious position. The gradual decay of the teatro vernáculo, a comic form similar to the sainete and based on popular types and facile humor, and the cessation of visits by the staple Spanish companies as a result of the Spanish Civil War and the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s, left Cuba almost without an organized theater of any importance. Sporadic attempts at renovation, aimed largely at the creation of a public accustomed to serious theater, were of no conspicuous success, although the new movement which began to emerge about 1954 produced a number of playwrights of interest. Chief among these were Virgilio Pifiera, a highly versatile dramatist whose chief interest is social criticism, Carlos Felipe, preoccupied with Freudianism, and a younger group composed of Nora Badia, Rolando Ferrer, Rene Buch, and Eduardo Manet, who attempted to develop a theater of psychological orientation and poetic expression. Despite the undeniable quality of much of their work, these authors wrote with little hope that their works would be staged by any other than small experimental groups. In the period 1954-1958, professional and semiprofessional Cuban companies staged only thirty plays, and many of these were inferior comedy or slapstick farce.