For the first time two Cuban playwrights: Nicolás Dorr and Gerardo León Fulleda are rewarded with the highest award in the performing arts in the archipelago. The awards ceremony will be held on January 22 in the Tito Junco Room at the Bertolt Brecht Theatre as part of the celebrations for the Day of Cuban Theater.
“This award comes at a time of recovery, transformation, many plans, desires of doing and living,” Fulleda León told OnCuba, days before receiving the award given by the National Council of Scenic Arts.
The experienced researcher and theater director said that in no way he expected to become the National Theatre Award this year and said, “I thought the award was for my partner, he deserves it. I thought it would be for Armando Morales, Fátima Patterson, or many other people. I didn’t believe I would be recognized this time. Imagine that I planned to travel to Spain on January 19 to teach a course.
“Always bet on the youngsters” the also president of the Section of Playwrights Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, UNEAC said, “I want to be tomorrow, so I’m interested in both the exchange with new generations”, he added.
Last year you left the direction of the Rita Montaner theater group, why?
“Yes, I left the direction of Rita Montaner theater group because I believe that in the arts directing for long can slow you down, somehow it conditions and prevents one from having a different perspective.
“Leading the company for 25 years was enough. It really formed me. I owe it and love it so much I continue to see myself as part of it part, but felt it necessary to renew the voices, perspectives and mandate. “
What do you think of the current Cuban drama?
“Look, right now coexist, with the passing-teacher Abelardo Estorino-my generation, other intermediate and younger, the latter with many strengths and virtues.
“There are names that are already unquestionable. I have to mention Ulises Rodríguez Febles and Abel González Melo, Junior Garcia, Zaldivar de los Reyes, Norge Espinosa in literature for children and young people who are giving a new face to the Cuban theater.
“I bet on the theater to come, and of course we will not do in my generation, but all of the following. They are in charge of transforming. Nothing should remain static. I do not believe in this false loyalty to the classics. A classic we must revere, love, take them all and give one’s vision. “
What play you have coming?
“My most recent work is” The unruly passion. “I finished it in 2012 and will release it next March with Antonia Fernández and her Vivarta troupe. There are other interested on that piece as t La Utopía con el Chino León, in Pinar del Rio. I will be back on stage directed by others which is what I like. “
Does this award further compromises you with the scene and the Cuban drama?
“It forces me to sit more, now that I have the condition to write. Sometimes I’m dumb, I’m looking, I think too much before starting to write, but one day when the characters speak in my ear and the next day I find myself saying an expression of one of them, I have to sit down and write. I hope that this process is faster now than when I was young. “
What demands your presence in Spain?
“In Spain there are two students of my work, Cristobal Macias and Maria Monica Ortiguera, researchers that have studied my work. They invited me to the University of Granada and the University of Malaga to give talks and lectures. Also impart an acting workshop and another of direction. “
Author of Ruandi, La querida de Enramada, Betún and almost twenty texts, the most outstanding pieces of Fulleda León have been made into films, television and radio and have been represented in Sweden, Venezuela, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras , Switzerland, Spain and the United States.
As director he has worked in a dozen proposals and has made the dramaturgical advice from more than 70 plays and two movies. His dramatic texts appear in anthologies of theater for children and adults.
