'Closest, Farthest Away' strikes deep chord in Havana
By Laurie and Joel Kramer | Monday, Dec. 7, 2009
HAVANA — Sage Lewis, a young Minnesota-born composer who spent
three years creating an American-Cuban theatrical
collaboration called "The
Closest Farthest Away," wanted the world premiere to be in
Havana, so the Cuban actors (who appear only on film) could be there.
Sage Lewis
He and the team from Project Por Amor overcame
countless obstacles, ranging from problems with both governments to a
broken projector bulb and a power outage hours before the first
performance, but this weekend they made it happen.
And it was
clear from the remarkable Q&A after the third performance
Sunday
that they had struck a deep chord with the mostly Cuban audience.
"The play makes my heart beat really fast," a
Cuban man said to loud applause. He explained that he got permission to
leave Cuba in 1995, but after two years of thinking decided not to go.
"I don't know what I missed — but I'm very grateful for what I didn't
miss."
Saying "it's very emotional for me too," the on-stage
translator jumped in with her own story. She left Cuba in 1995 and now
teaches Spanish and literature at a New York college. "I don't know
what I missed, but I'm grateful for the things I achieved." She got
applause too.
Nowhere to be together but 'Theatre of the Sea'
The
story line of "The Closest Farthest Way" involves an American scientist
and a Cuban doctor who fall in love and can find no place to live
together except the "Theatre of the Sea."
Musician Yrak
Saenz, who performs a hip-hop number in the film, said he was living
the story. His wife, a North American, lives in Miami with their son.
They travel to Mexico so they can all be together. (Hip-hop, by the
way, was considered music of the enemy because it was from the United
States, but is now well-supported, according to Sage Lewis.)
There
was very little overt political commentary in the script, which had to
go through Cuban censors (though Ana, the Cuban doctor, does complain
to her father that in Cuba even decent people steal, and the Cuban
economy cannot even create a decent head of lettuce). In the
Q&A,
too, the Cubans carefully avoided talking about their government. But
the purpose of the collaboration is, in a way, profoundly political —
aiming to bring the people of these two countries closer together
through "the crazy process of art-making," Lewis said.
The
use of live American actors interacting with Cubans on film, in
addition to being technically dazzling, represented a powerful metaphor
— that these two people, less than 90 miles apart, cannot be in the
same space.
Boris Gonzalez Arenas
"Cubans are taught to fear Americans as bad," said Boris
Gonzalez Arenas,
who directed the Cuban actors on film. "But we received only affection,
consideration and respect" during this collaboration. "We would like
the Americans to take home the same feelings."
Headed for Miami in March
The production was
created primarily for U.S. audiences and will be performed in Miami in
March 2010. The Project Por Amor team hopes it will be performed
elsewhere and are still revising the piece. (The first performance felt
a bit like a tech rehearsal — and in fact was the first run-through of
the entire piece.)
A number of California and New York theater professionals attended the
opening, including Teresa Eyring, the head of the Theater Communications Group
and former managing director of Children's Theater
Company in Minneapolis.
Hundreds
of people attended each performance at Teatro Mella, named for a
co-founder of the first Cuban Communist Party. Minnesotans included
Lewis family members and friends and a group from Plymouth Congregational
Church who were on a trip to visit a sister church in a small
Cuban city. Project funders came from Connecticut and Massachusetts.
A new generation
Almost all the performers
and crew from both countries are young, about 30. The
American director, Chi-wang
Yang,
said, "This is something from the new generation speaking about the
relationship between the two countries. ... Our generation has been
handed many problems."
Chi-wang Yang
A 48-year-old theater professional who left
Cuba for California in 2001 agreed that new voices need to be heard —
both in the United States and Cuba. "It's time for the older generation
to leave the scene."
Ironically, the final comments during the Q&A Sunday were made
by a much older man, Cuban filmmaker Enrique
Pineda Barnet.
"I cannot leave my seat without adding my own grain of sand to the
'Theatre of the Sea,' he said slowly.
"Five
or six years ago it was not possible for this piece to be performed in
this theater. This is an extraordinary and historic moment …
transcending a political divide. We're becoming part of a large new
structure being built right now … a bridge that goes above all our
differences. The bridge is being built strong and tough … by love and
for love."
Like the show itself, he got a standing ovation.
Joel
Kramer, MinnPost editor and CEO, and Laurie Kramer, director of
MinnPost membership, special events and outreach, will write more about
their trip to Cuba, and publish some of their photographs, when they
return to the United States and get a better Internet connection.
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