Mireya Castañeda

The Cuban National Performing Arts Council (CNAE) has announced the 15th edition of the Havana Theater Festival for October 25 through November 3 and is confident that during these days, "The island will become a multiple stage."

Followers of theater in Cuba will recall that the festival is a non-competitive event, open to all "tendencies, ideas, proposals and dialogues."

This year’s event is dedicated to actors’ memory and creativity, and joins the rest of the world in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great actor, reformer and master of the stage, Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski.

As CNAE indicated in its convocation, "The power of his legacy, his technical and aesthetic contributions from the Moscow Art Theater; his close relations with important dramaturges such as Anton Chekov, Maeterlinck, Ibsen and Shakespeare; as well as his promotion of figures like Meyerhold and Vajtangov; and the influence of his methods world-wide, have made him an inescapable reference," adding that in Cuba, Stanislavski had a lasting impact on important companies and outstanding directors.

The Festival will additionally celebrate its own 15th birthday - that is, 30 years of existence - and will do so with its now customary presentation of the best of theater for boys and girls and adults.

The selection of works to be presented by Cuban and international groups has been the responsibility of a curatorial team looking to offer a high-quality, attractive program. The organizing committee has not quite completed the challenging selection process, reporting that proposals from national companies are still being considered.

To date, the Festival committee has confirmed the presentation of works from 19 countries, plus joint efforts: Spain (9), Argentina (8), Mexico (5), Colombia (5), Brazil (3), France (2), Venezuela (2), and one each; Uruguay, Italy, Ecuador, Germany, Chile, Finland, Ukraine, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, China and Russia.

Spain arrives with two co-productions with the United States, one with Poland and another with Cuba. Germany and Chile are also presenting a co-production.

Long awaited is the return to Havana’s stages of the great Argentine actress Graciela Dufau, who, again directed by Hugo Urquijo, will perform in La mujer justa, based on the great novel by Hungarian Sándor Márai (The fair woman).

Also from Argentina is Marica, a one-person show by Pepe Cibrián Campoy, presented by El Vasco Producciones. The synopsis of the piece is intriguing, describing the work of an actor imagining the final hours of Federico García Lorca’s life and his relation with the murderer. Among the characters portrayed by a single actor is Lorca himself, the murderer, his mother and father, Salvador Dalí and a woman from the town.

Also attractive is the offering by the Ecuadoran company – well known in Cuba - Teatro Ensayo GESTUS, which is also celebrating the 25th anniversary of its founding in 2013. In addition to sharing its excellent acting, the group will provoke Cuban audiences with its staging of Falsa alarma, by the great Cuban playwright Virgilio Piñera. In many Latin American theater circles, it has been noted that if others were not so Eurocentric, they would recognize that this play, written in 1948, was the first example of theater of the absurd, not The Bald Soprano (1950), by Romanian Eugéne Ionesco.

The German-Chilean co-production is Calcetines, mentiras y vino which brings Chilean master Álvaro Solar to Havana once again. The play is a one-person musical during which "in an absolutely magical realism style, everything in Solar’s world comes to life; everything has a face, a voice, a soul." Critics have praised the work which allows the protagonist, Solar, to share details of a band of friends and his small world with music, comedy, philosophy and poetry - creating great images with fascinating songs. The actor must do all of this, with sudden transformations, body movements, an abundance of human, animal and musical sounds, jumping effortlessly from one role to another.

Su Excelencia, Ricardo III, a Brazilian street theater version of the Shakespeare classic, will be a must-see. The staging includes one of the most seductive villains of the art form, presented by two of the most outstanding names in Brazilian theater: the Clowns de Shakespeare company and the director, set and wardrobe designer, Gabriel Villela. The company channels the circus, with its clowns and roving wagons, taking the streets with music typical of northeastern Brazil as a background, adding classic British rock, featuring at times bands such as Queen and Supertramp.

The Brazilian company is retelling the story in a popular style, and when the Spanish language staging is added, communication with the audience should be great.