Teatro Tuyo’s «Umbral» Returns to Matanzas Today

What is a clown? What is its function within contemporary society? We generally associate the clown with laughter, but it is not enough to put on makeup, wear loose, brightly colored clothing, a red nose, and make exaggerated movements and gestures to be a clown.

Its essence goes beyond falling on stage and the comic vis that accompanies it. The art of clowning, well thought out and performed, becomes an ideal way to address complex issues, social problems, and everyday phenomena through humor and entertainment.

«Umbral is a show that addresses themes that are sometimes avoided in the world of childhood; it usually does not go down those paths, but I believe it is urgent that our children can also engage in dialogue through a stage production with such terrible problems as the world is going through: climate change, different diseases, war that is the result of so many human ambitions.

«I believe that theater, although it cannot offer a solution to such problems, can certainly bring the debate into the families that accompany the children and also become active agents.

«A fundamental characteristic of the dramaturgy in Teatro Tuyo is that it seeks for adults not just to accompany children to the theater but also to be participants in the dialogue beyond what the play and staging can propose,» comments Ernesto Parra, screenwriter, actor, founder, and director of the group Teatro Tuyo.

A clown debates between the possibility of taking refuge in a safe, quiet place without shocks or dangers — the theater — or the need to go out into the outside world in search of a way to save his friend, a rose that is dying, whose presence in the play serves as an immediate reference to the rose in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s «The Little Prince.»

«Papote arrives taking refuge in the theater, fleeing from all the chaos outside, in the world, and decides to stay there safe, with the audience. He has the conflict that his flower, his eternal friend, his great companion, is dying, and he cannot find the solution.

«Even though he is a doctor and also a mechanic, there is a fusion here between both ideas; that is, he is a ‘medic-clown,’ and he finds neither in his tool suitcase nor in his first-aid kit anything that can save her.

«There lies the main conflict: whether to go out and find the solution for his flower or simply prefer to stay inside, safe, but at the risk of his flower dying completely.»

According to playwright, writer, and critic Ulises Rodríguez Febles, what is comic in «Umbral» is always poetic. It is a different look at tragedy, an act of poetry and hope with Papote as the character.

«Umbral» constitutes a symbiosis between the art of the clown and figure theater, whose resources and techniques are used with sensitivity and intelligence, with unusual, provocative images.

Precisely, with that open-minded and reflective gaze, through humor and laughter, «Umbral» is capable of moving, inciting thought, and awakening humanism, empathy, and individual and collective responsibility.

«Although it always uses humor as a bridge, as a means, as a guide, it is a play that speaks about very complex situations in these minutes, and I believe that the audience can indeed engage in dialogue with the show.

«We have high expectations, after having had a successful season here in Havana for three weekends, to now arrive in Matanzas, at our home, at the Pepe Camejo theater.»

The most recent premiere of Teatro Tuyo, with Ernesto Parra at the helm, was presented in Matanzas during the 16th Festitaller Internacional de Títeres de Matanzas (International Puppet Festival of Matanzas) last March 21.

«I have always affirmed that Matanzas is the province that, throughout all these years, has always welcomed Teatro Tuyo’s work with great affection. I believe, without fear of being wrong, that it is the place we have visited most frequently at different stages, and practically our entire repertoire has been presented there, in the different theater venues of the province.

«Being there is always returning home, and now much closer to you. So for us, it is not a visit; it is a reunion that we hold very frequently.»

Ernesto, who perceives in Matanzas the welcoming atmosphere of one’s own home, shares the expectations that motivate a new performance before the local audience.

«Always thanking the Council of Performing Arts for all the effort they make to have us there, to our hosts on this occasion, Teatro de Las Estaciones, which is our Matanzas family, in a theater that is emblematic for all Cuban theater and, in particular, for Teatro Tuyo, because there we have performed our entire repertoire, so it is not an audience unfamiliar with us; it is an audience that already knows Teatro Tuyo’s work.

«Returning, and this time with ‘Umbral,’ my most recent show, will be a breath of fresh air for the soul, a joy, as it has always been on every previous occasion.»

«Umbral» will take the stage at the Pepe Camejo theater, headquarters of Teatro de Las Estaciones, today and tomorrow starting at 11:00 a.m.