Carlos Díaz, one of Havana’s most renowned stage directors and member of the ISA’s first graduating class, is known internationally for his provocative and eccentric plays that often involve sex and nudity. Before meeting him last Monday, our class read an analysis of one of his recent plays, Las Relaciones de Clara, which explores the idea of intimacy and commodification of the body in the Cuban context through a woman with various sexual partners who is deciding whether or not to sell her body for medical research. Díaz decided to set the play in a large mansion down the street from his regular theatre and have the audience participate in the action by following the actors from room to room, all the while exploring their own spatial intimacy by standing close together in the hot environment. When we were told that we were to watch a group of actors rehearsing a play directed by Díaz, I was prepared for anything. What I wasn’t expecting was a play called Harry Potter o Se acabó la magia, combining the lives of the actors themselves (theatre students at the Escuela Nacional de Arte) with the plot of J.K. Rowling’s famous novel. The play was written by a Cuban author, with the input of the various students, in honor of their graduation from the high school level of arts education. The class had grown up together, and various memories from class parties and farewells to those who had moved away formed part of the script. It was an interesting experience to watch the famous director watch his actors, high school students, deliver monologues about their lives. Our group sat to the side of the rehearsal and wondered about the connections between the story we knew so well and the uniquely Cuban lives of the students.
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