By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Jul 23 1996 (IPS)

Cuban theatre, like virtually every sector of life in Cuba, is in crisis. Productions have been been limited to weekend showings, ticket prices have quadrupled, actors have been seeking contracts abroad and, for the first time in more than three decades, artists have had to think in commercial terms in order to obtain financing for their work.

Nevertheless, critics agree that the theatre has become the preferred arena of social dialogue and critical reflection.

Dissident for some, opportunistic for others and nostalgic for many, Cuban theatre today includes everything from lavish productions to mediocre shows that only seek to satisfy the demands of audiences in order to guarantee their success.

For Orlando Vigil, playwright and specialist in community culture, the theatre is more than “opportunistic”. He believes it is a reaffirmation of the artistic struggle to preserve the dreams born of the 1959 revolution – which many believe are now threatened.

The so-called “end of utopia” came to Cuba with the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the worst national crisis to hit the country of the second half of this century – which has affected all the sectors of the economy as well as culture.

The 50 theatre projects approved and subsidized by the Ministry of Culture in Havana have struggled to survive in a city of two million million inhabitants. Some 10 theatres operate on restricted hours and lack many essential facilities.

Yet critics agree the thratre leads the way in presenting Cuban society with “a human, social, ethic, and philosophical reflection on its own contradictions”.

“The hope for a better life – not nihilism or total desperation – is what emerges obsessively on stage,” observed reviewer Magaly Muguercia.

Back in 1994, Havana theatregoers flocked to see ‘She Looks White’, a piece in which Abelardo Estorino, one of Cuba’s best living playwrights, presented a very personal version of the novel by Cirilo Villaverde, ‘Cecilia Valdes or the Angel’s Hill’, considered almost a national myth.

Audiences, who experienced the daily exodus of “boat people” to the United States, immediately found references to the current crisis in this version of the 19th century story.

Two years later, Cuban theatre now seems to be undergoing a revival of sorts, similar to the earlier boom of the 1960s, which critic Rine Leal – in his book ‘In the First Person’ – characterized as the most important and vital artistic expression of the period.

Critic and playwright Amado del Pino says that “there are not enough elements to go that far, but theatre is the cultural expression that most motivates and unsettles because of its necessary dialogue with the audience”.

Del Pino adds, however, that “the editorial and press limitations that exist in the country since 1990” have prevented the diffusion of “the constant atmosphere of polemics that surround the scene”.

According to art critic Rufo Caballero “it is curious that a form of expression like drama is playing the critical role that figurative art had in the ’80s”.

Abel Prieto, president of National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, said at the beginning of this year that in Cuba “there was a growing maturity for understanding the critical role of art”. But in an interview in ‘Revolution and Culture’, the monthly magazine published by the Ministry of Culture, Prieto acknowledged that there were still “incidents and tensions”.

Those are the kinds of problems which come up in the so-called “puyas”, in which the more urgent issues in society are dealt with indirectly, by using humor and phrases with “double meaning”.

According to the experts, the main concern is not the criticism per se, but how it is done. In the words of Sergio Corrieri, actor and government official, “a work of art does not have an effect in the political or social debate if the artistic language is not competent”.

Some famous figures in Cuban theatre, like Alberto Pedro, as well as some of the younger ones, like Victor Varela and Carlos Diaz, have demonstrated through their work the existence of a movement that maintains diversity of expression and at the same time is able to insert itself in important international circuits and festivals.

In terms of the box office, after the first years of a financial crisis which has kept Cubans confined to their homes, there is now a gradual return to the theatre.

According to critics Vivian Martinez, Cuban audiences are seeking in the theatre a place “to share daily concerns” – something which cannot be found in television or in the press.

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By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Jul 2 1996 (IPS)

The 1980s were an unforgettable decade in Venezuela: the oil boom ended, and the country’s slide into penury began. Chaotic and exuberant, the times were best captured by the singer Ilan Chester, major exponent of the urban music movement which germinated during those turbulent years and creator of “Canto de Avilla”, a song which became the anthem of an era.

Now, at 44-years-old, he is tired of it all. He is holding a series of live concerts to mark an end to his days as a performer before retiring to a spa called “Ciudadela” where he will write songs for others to sing.

There has always been something rare about this man who somehow managed to balance the trials of being part of a million dollar entertainment business with musical creativity.

Ilan is widely recognised as the best Venezuelan singer and musician, though fans of Jose Luis Rodriguez (El Puma) would perhaps disagree. He is part of a group of young composers who changed the nataure of Venezuelan pop song, incorporating sentiments of the common people, problems of daily living, and social criticism, especially after the eighties.

Yodano, Franco de Vita, Frank Quintero and the more commercially appealing Guillermo Davila and Ricardo Montaner or Colina and Sergio Perez were among the names.

All sing about everlasting themes like loneliness, falling in and out of love. But their lyrics are rooted in realism, reflecting the experiences of poeople living in a modern metropolis and the problems they face.

Lyrics are accompanied by modern and complex music, using synthesisers and keyboards with the instruments and sounds of the Caribbean. They inspired a movement which revived all local music.

Perhaps the performance of the year took place in the Teresa Carreno theatre. It showed Ilan at his peak, with daring accompaniment from the Venezuelan Philarmonic Orchestra, making three hours seem like minutes to the enthralled audience.

So why is Ilan retiring?

He said he was “tired” of the “arduous” profession. His moments of creativity and composition were accompanied by too many demands from the “show business” side — “the machinery” as he terms it.

However, his biggest frustration has been lack of international recognition. “I’ve had an extraordinary career in Venezuela, but I’ve been unable to find the business coherence to do the same abroad,” he laments.

Now he will be “taking the role of a tailor, composing songs according to the concerns of the interpreters,” he said, adding that he wants to write “for those who sing well and sell a lot of records, in that order,” under his new contract as songwriter for Paramount records.

Ilan aims to spend more time with his six children, who he feels were brushed aside during his 15 years of touring and recording, and he will also invest in his Ciudadela project “to offer the nation the alternative of a deep culture.”

Though born in Israel, to a prominent Jewish family, he embraced at an early age the Hindu Krishna faith. His Hindu faith is therefore “a sensitive and delicate point,” though he believes the basis for all religions is the same — “if I am a better human being, I am a better Jew of a better Muslim.”

An unlabelled God appears from time to time in his lyrics, along with calls for “single everlasting loves” in a social context where male faithfulness is looked down upon.

His ecological outlook, the defence of a more humane and less materialistic way of life, criticism for the consumer society, the arms race and social and ethnic inequalities, are other elements which run throughout his music.

In the inauguration of his farewell concert he jibed at President Rafael Caldera. “How sweet it is not to pay/But the bill is on its way.”

But overall, his thrust is on a “light” cocktail of love and jibes at the market culture all in a halo of increasing spirituality, with a new edge added by his imminent retirement.

“I prefer to dream, don’t wake me up,” he says in his song “Pisando Tierra” (treading on the ground), adding that “everything is going badly, because no one can deny that they have lost their head.”

In “Vale la pena esperar” (It’s worth hoping), an optimistic song “which is not utopia,” tells of the arrival “at forgetting so much weapon accumulation just to win a meagre war,” a good reason for hope.

He also asks, “when will the day come when all men will be free” in “El Amor llego a mi ciudad” (Love came to my city), while several songs appeal for differences of race and colour to become less important.

The grey life of “the man who doesn’t give in” while he “is paid his (salary) cheque” and “pays his bills” is described in his most acid song “El ya esta definido,” (He is already defined).

The song tells the tale of a man who struggles on despite the corrupt nature of his business and the fragmentation of his family, where children bicker constantly and the wife only asks for more money.

These and many more of his most popular tunes completed the line up of the farewell concert, where the public laughed, sang along, danced and embraced in tacit agreement with the artist.

Ilan seemed the most convinced that “everything will come to its end,” as one of his songs says, at a time when he has to “finish it off and say goodbye.”

However, Yordano questioned the finality of the act, insisting “it is inevitable that he will come back, because he breathes, sweats and speaks music.”

And while his middle aged belly gives away the march of the years, his curls and his colourful shirts remain the same, for the thin youth who could practically hide behind the microphone stand is now a full and mature performer.

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