By: Martha Sanchez
An ineludible cultural offer in Havana until March 31 is Rent, the first musical production performed in Cuba in collaboration with a Broadway team and premiered by young artists from Cuba under the direction of a U.S. professional team.
What it seemed unbelievable, it is not anymore. Before, no one could imagine that a Broadway’s authentic play would appear on the publicity board of the Cuban Theatre, much less performed by Cuban musicians and actors.
This musical project has become a reality for Cubans, so that those theatergoers can enjoy this theatrical genre. Cuba, once again, proved to be open to the cultural exchange between the two nations as well as the necessary learning for further artistic development.
The main room of the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center seems to fit the scenography of Rent, a Pulitzer winning work plus four Tony Awards, which came to Cuba thanks to a partnership between the National Council for the Performing Arts and Nederlander Worldwide Entertainmet.
Collaboration is the key word to achieve many things, for which it has made possible this play in Cuba, said Robert Nederlander, president and manager of this American artistic entity.
The producer was very interested in the local impact and justified the choice of the Brecht small stage for the proximity it allows between actors and audiences, in favor of privacy.
Andy Lord, Jr is the Rent artistic director and was one of the protagonists of this play when it was premiered in Broadway in 1996. He stressed that this work touches very human issues and it is an opportunity for the cast composed of young artists ,for they to prove themselves as actors, dancers, and singers.
In this work, there are no principal actors but many actors with different personalities and deep personal problems, in a way that it is necessary a joint effort to achieve scenes like La Vie Boheme.
Rent argument came from the famous opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini, but American writer Jonathan Larson moved its characters to a poor neighborhood in New York, at the end of the 1980's, and reflected in the screenplay the concerns of that time.
Those spectators with a culture of the society and the music of that time will better understand the value of the play premiered in 1996, when it was taboo talking about a death due to AIDS, gays or bisexual.
In fact, it is yet a prejudice for some people and Rent breaks ways of thinking, it defends above all love without gender barriers of genre or any kind. It praises life, friendship, understanding, and reflects the social and economic insecurity of that part of New York that almost never appear in the movies.
The characters try to live their desires to the full because "there is no more today, there is more here” and no one has a penny to pay the rent. Outside is a thanksgiving and a group is responsible for clarifying: but not here.
The Performances of Luis Alberto Aguirre as Angel, Laritza Pulido as Joanne, Zammys Jimenez as Maureen, Reynier Morales as Collins, Joanna Gómez as Mimi, Arianna Delgado as the Mark’s mother and Claudia Mulet as Alexi Darling, Roger’s mother, among others, all of them deserve many applauses.
Joanne’s scenes such as the Tango Maureen, we are going well and or I accept or go, the latter shared with her partner scenic Maureen, are some of the most successful parts of the work, as well as the Angel performance, playing a role as a transvestite and a AIDS patient who gives love all the time.
Rent will be played at the capital theaters until the end of March 2015, accompanied by a group of pianists, guitarists, a bassist and a drummer who provide organization to the stage.
Broadway came to Cuba to provide messages of respect, tolerance, love and challenges to Cuban young artists who grew up with just a few references of a musical work, since it has been depressed here for decades. Hopefully, Rent will be a starting point towards the contemporary thing and a door back to the tradition.
Source: Caribbean News Digital
