Shortly Apatia by Lilian Susel Zaldivar will reach the Cuban scene accompanied by Gerardo Fulleda and the Rita Montaner acompany
The Rolando Ferrer playwriting Chair bets this year on young female voices in celebration of the bicentenary of the birth of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. In its usual Lecturas Cruzadas space on the Dulce Maria Loynaz Center, it welcomed playwright Lilian Susel Apathy Zaldivar and her Apatia text, for which the author received the Writing of the difference Award (2012), a prize that pursues the development of the feminine literature.
Apatia delves into Cuba in the crisis reflected in an aspect of our drama since the early 2000. It flow between his dialogues, issues such as housing shortages, intergenerational conflict and individual constraints that problem can lead to. At the same time, the situation of women in patriarchal society with which today we continue dealing with and loneliness that marks all spaces and beings that live in it.
In Apatia there is not a single place where to find shelter from what is corrupt, or selling your body. The fact is that the author even denies her characters the right to choose whether to live or not: none of the suicide attempts within the play leads to death. It seems that Lilian Susel Zaldivar condemns her characters endure the punishment of eternal frustration of not being able to even decide what to do with their own bodies … A dialogue with young playwright allowed us to define some of these disturbing ideas she articulated in Apatia.
Current Cuba … loneliness and women.
I thought of corruption and loneliness, and also, hence the title of the work, laziness, apathy that might even be as corrosive or more corrosive than corruption itself. I’ve thought about the permissibility and indifference to painful issues. That does not do anything to hard things; it seems even more terrible than the same phenomenon of corruption. This is one of the multiple readings that my work has and it is intentional.
Moreover, women are essential in any society. Their role as mothers involves the creation and in that sense is the support of a home and an entire society. While it is the woman who accepts the destiny imposed to do nothing, to assume their role is essential and basic, as a slave, there is one that assumes that the protagonist, as a leader. Sara, the main character of my work precisely would be the opposite to no opposition from many women today. She assumes her femininity as a resignation, if not a leading role to be played and she should be proud of.
Could you talk about the existence of intergenerational issues in Cuba today? As your work underlies, are the youth not heard by the generations that preceded them?
This has been an eternal conflict in any society that could also be occurring in Cuban society. It is a conflict inherent in any society at any time. The conflict between the new and the old, the past and the present. And finally, if we think more carefully, it is not really a conflict, but a logical contradiction and generating unquestionable course development, hence the importance of occurrence.
What do you think of the concept that Gerardo Fulleda handles for the future installation of your play Apatia? Was this how you had imagined it in the beginning, the characters present in the scene all the time and only two white beds as part of the set design?
It costs me a little to really imagine this staging because it is a play that has cost me work. I find it difficult for the subject and by the very psychology of the characters. Fulleda told me some time ago he would do this work and I had commented him this way of conceiving the scenery. Reading is close to my expectations, of course, I am very satisfied with the work. Well, with respect to the staging … you’ll see when the rehearsals begin. The Fulleda’s project seems close to what I could have imagined.
Future plans for Lilian Susel Zaldivar?
Well … writing, keep writing. I have several projects to finish, several books.
Cover photo: Poster of the Sixth Biennial International of the Escritura de la/s diferencia/s
