Act I
It was an afternoon in January 2022 and Antón was not Antón. He was before my eyes just a gentleman with a stoic figure leaning on the symmetrical and elegant railing of the balcony of a house. The balcony overlooked the Paseo del Prado in Havana. The man contemplated the routine of a piece of the city.
I did not recognize him, nor did I know that that neoclassical house was his home. What caught my attention was the soft light of the Caribbean “winter” that bathed the scene. In the distance I noticed that he was smiling. I returned what I perceived as a greeting, pointed the camera at him, and pressed the shutter several times before continuing on my way.
It wouldn’t be until months later, while I was rearranging photos, that I would discover the identity of that protagonist of my sequence, memorable in its daily simplicity. When I looked closely at the snapshots, I realized that it was none other than the writer Antón Arrufat.
Now, a few days after the news of his death, I am reading the poem “El río de Heraclito”, which he wrote in 1969. The first stanza could well accompany our random crossing, with Havana as a witness:
I meditated on these things on the bus:
you love a city, you live in it
with the certainty that we are leaving
any given day, but that house, the gate
from that door, the open courtyard
in the middle of the conversation, I know
that they will receive another and others and they will see it.
It is the love of those who say goodbye, without realizing
a lot of account while engraving his name
on the walls, or with the silence that
Leave wisdom in your mouth, contemplate the city.
There is more. The photos that I took that afternoon immediately after, just a few meters away and from the Paseo del Prado itself, were of a couple in love in the foreground and a mother with her newborn in the background, also on a neoclassical balcony overlooking the city. .
With this image I return to other verses of the aforementioned poem, an extensive and captivating text in which the poetic voice reflects during a bus ride through the city. The existence and durability seen from a “everything flows, we are and we are not” of Heraclitus of Ephesus. Again the verses cover the photo.
But you, Havana, are safe, built
like eternity for you to receive us,
You watch us go by, and you grow with our goodbye.
Act II
On the occasions when I came across the poet, playwright and National Literature Award winner, I almost always saw him from a low angle. This was the case on October 20, 2007, the day of Cuban culture, after the world premiere of his work The seven against Thebes at the Mella theatre.
Amid an avalanche of applause, with the Greek scenery in the background and seconded by actors and actresses, Antón Arrufat took the stage. Smiling and excited, he raised a bouquet of white butterflies like someone who raises the flags of triumph after a long battle.
“Perfume your hair, and put on a rose and a bouquet of myrtle for that day,” he lovingly tells his beloved Megareo, a soldier who figures in the war of The seven against Thebes.
In 1968, at the age of 33, the young poet and playwright Arrufat wrote in verse The seven against Thebes, from the homonymous piece by the Greek Aeschylus.
The brothers Eteocles and Polynices compete for power in Thebes. The conflict sparks an epic battle pitting brother against brother and brings with it a series of tragedies.
The argument became a symbol of the struggle for power, excessive ambition and the tragic consequences of family conflicts. The work revisits universal themes such as morality, justice and destiny. The decisions we make and the actions we take can have lasting repercussions and can alter the course of our lives and those around us.
The reality would resemble the content of the work itself, between the epic and the tragic. The seven against Thebes de Arrufat won the Uneac Theater Award. The verdict was handed down by a prestigious international jury. Coupled with these laurels, censorship immediately creaked and the author was submerged in ostracism for fifteen long years.
So the night of its opening, almost forty years later, the famous work was seen on stage for the first time, with the Mefisto Teatro group.
The dramaturgy was carried out by the director Alberto Sarraín, the set design by Jesús Ruiz and the costume design by Eduardo Arrocha among a group of great professionals.
That night, in the program of the play, one could read some lines written by Antón Arrufat regarding the unforgettable theatrical event and which shows its greatness:
Dear audience, good evening. This is Anton Arrufat speaking.
Take your seats and be quiet, an auspicious silence. This act of reparation and justice could have been a posthumous act. But the secret laws that govern our lives did not provide it that way.
Forty years after writing The seven against Thebes, After having been banned and marginalized from Cuban culture and theater, she goes up on stage and presents herself before the consideration of her spectators. And to the happiness of Thebes, the author of it has not died. He is here, he takes his place and his lunette, he talks and walks, he smiles and shakes the hands that are held out to greet him. Others have died, among them many of their great friends and their little enemies, others live in a foreign land, and neither one nor the other will be able to attend this spectacle, which I have to see alive and well, let those who love me and those who love me know it well. those who would have preferred that this work never premiered. This supreme moment has arrived for me and for all those who know how to accompany.
As my readers know, The seven against Thebes It is not the only work I have written. Books of stories and poems, novels and essays have followed one another during these forty years, and recognitions, medals, national prizes have been awarded to me in my country. However, this work remained in the shadows, in an ominous shadow, which was reflected in everything I did until today. The social circumstances in which the men who condemned her were able to carry out that misfortune are no longer the same. Almost three generations have passed. We are all wiser. In that long and fruitful time we learned that our society and our life form a contradictory, torn, creative relationship between everyone, individuals and the State. That is here in Thebes, in this kind of agora they have to debate with tears and lamentations, as befits a tragedy. In the magical space of the theater, it will lead us to another area where unreality is transformed into knowledge about the reality of our lives. On the permanence of that shadow, with the doors open, a powerful light will fall that will make all its spectators, the author included, more luminous.
As is customary in his initiation ritual, Mephisto knocks three times to start the performance.
