A story will have life as long as there is an audience willing to listen to it, feel it and imagine it. In this effort, the theater will always be a resource both to immortalize a real event and to materialize events that arise from the imagination of the artist who creates them.
A few years ago Jazz Vila appropriated a personal story to add disappointments, a bit of drama and the occasional fleeting joy to Skyscraperits debut with the company that bears his name. The staging has already offered the creator many joys inside and outside of Cuba.
Recently, the work came to life again for the public, but this time with a peculiar montage in which the fourth wall mutated into the Castillo Mansion, one of the heritage houses of Havana’s Vedado. Visual arts and live music accompanied this particular staging.
If something has characterized the company’s work Jazz Vila Productions (JVP) has been experimentation and the constant search for new ways of doing things in the theater, which have flirted with other creative formats like television and movies. Music also has a prominent role in the works, and is almost always presented in the form of original creations.
Last April, JVP celebrated eight years of being founded with special presentations in miamiwhere four of the five original stories coincided in the same narrative, changing the previous format (a common room for four couples), to alternate in unison a room, a kitchen, a living room and a balcony.
Now, in Havana, during the last week of June, the original idea was taken up again and viewers were able to enjoy the five original stories of love and farewells, of moments of joy and anger, with sorrows and glories, always with the metaphor of skyscrapers as a sum of happiness, but also as a reminder of the resounding fall that living in such a building can entail.
The chosen space had as scenery the collective exhibition half a millenniumwhich in its second season, under the name of erotic havanaseeks a “(re)knowledge of other visual angles and interiorities not shown” of the capital, in the words of the curators Mayda Tirado and Lia Milanés, a concept that fits the theme of Skyscraper.
The eroticism and provocation that emanate from the corners of the city are absorbed by the actors during the performance, where the lives of the characters are intertwined under a not so invisible thread, living in a city that leads them to unleash their passions and dark desires, evoking old loves and seeking the vitality that leads couples to stay on their feet, despite the sorrows, like Havana itself, which, although it does not have its own skyscraper, tries not to fall into oblivion and discouragement .
The pieces of the 11 artists that make up the exhibition have the names of Adrián Socorro, Alicia de la Campa, Rafael San Juan, Arián Írsula, Ismael de la Caridad, Harold Marín, among others. The works seek to reflect, mainly through painting, sculpture and photography, the diverse nuances, constants and colors of the centenary Cuban capital, which has been adorned by stories of love and uprooting throughout its five centuries of existence. existence.
Thus, Vilá’s work, adaptable to any environment, knows how to reflect the different moods of the city, just as it happens in any couple relationship, —whether it is heteronormative or not—. Skyscraper does not seek to investigate the gossip of a conventional relationship, but rather shows the public the diversity of affections that make up societies, whether in Havana or in any other destination in the world.
The live music in this montage works as a subtle and punctual element during the staging, although it could take on greater prominence in future presentations, to adapt a more favorable environment to each of the four stories presented, which could even have their own band. sound, without abusing the music in question.
In the case of the couples in the play, although the young actors knew how to assume their characters with solvency, the affinity and chemistry that distinguishes any relationship were lacking at times, regardless of whether it is in an established couple or in lovers who are just beginning a relationship. Romance.
The use of the spaces was another of the successes of this singular assembly, with which the public moved from place to place, allowing an unusual approach in the theater more conventional. At times, they even flirted with the public present, fostering greater interaction both with the narrative itself and with the pieces in the exhibition.
Scenarios and mise-en-scène like this take the audience out of their usual zone of passive expectation, and allow them to delve deeper into the story that is narrated, at the same time allowing them to explore the environment where the characters live together. Vilá knows how to attract the attention of her audience and with this presentation she also seeks to take the theater to other stages, with a work that is easily adaptable. The staging is “fresh air” for Cuban stages, in need of initiatives that can take the performing arts to every corner where art is always well received.
