Ulises Rodríguez Febles: «Theater Is Testimony, Questioning, Poetry, It Is Life»
«It is a painful work at which the spectator perhaps will not stop laughing,» is how playwright, writer, and researcher Ulises Rodríguez Febles describes Cajero, the text with which he earned a special mention at the 6th Carlos Schwaderer 2026 Ibero-American Playwriting Contest, awarded in Spain this Saturday, August 29, on the eve of the Matanzas native’s birthday.
«Cajero is a comedy I wrote for the Vital Teatro group, with two characters: a professor of Mesopotamian History — a subject that clearly does not exist — and an obituary writer. Both meet in one of the long lines to enter the bank.
«It is a story of everyday life, centered on the lives of two older adults, on their tragedy: loneliness, helplessness, and also their drive, strength, and sense of struggle. It is an absurd text, in an absurd context; a testimony of an era, structured in three moments, like a journey to Hades or the hell of Dante’s Divine Comedy, centered on the characters, the situations, the dialogue, which moves between the lyrical, the suggestive, of what is said and also what is proposed, from the comic.»
As in all works bearing Rodríguez Febles’ signature, the nation’s past and present history (which tomorrow will be the past) join the characters to outline a panorama that speaks of how we are and why, our customs, beliefs, and traditions.
«I am interested in and concerned about reality and, in some way, History — past and present. In this case, it is a work born from reality, from immersing myself in it, researching it, and processing it. It was an idea I had for quite some time, to reflect what banking has produced in the human being, what they feel before the scenario reality proposes to us; I had the idea, even the characters.
«On social media, I wrote a text, tragic and at the same time comic, about what happens, and there were so many reactions from people — the likes, the views, the comments with experiences from the people, from those walking the streets, which is what interests me — that I imbued that spirit into a theatrical text I also wrote in the notes app of my phone, something I am doing a lot, to get ahead and to imbue myself with the truth of the people. That was the process.
«In the same way that I tell you I wrote it in my phone’s notes app, it has, it seems to me, the simplicity and at the same time the sharpness of mixing that reality with diverse references for the treatment of the theme. That is why it gives me great joy that others can read Cajero.»
That has been one of Ulises’ winning cards, in addition to his skill as a narrator, his command of language, and the balance in presenting the plot, the characters, and their connections with national History.
The reflection of national reality in the works of an author with more than 30 theatrical texts and two novels stems from his need to show what the country is experiencing in a manner closer to our context, as in the case of Cajero and Cuarentena, or in different stages of its historical development, as in Las últimas vacas van a morir (Guillermo Vidal Novel Prize, 2017), El señor de las tijeras, Huevos, and Emilia habla con los que no la escuchan.
«It is my way of seeing life and creation, which feeds on memory. I believe greatly in writing, whatever it may be, as an act of leaving testimony of the realities where God made us be born. There is a poem by Eliseo Diego that more or less refers to something like that, and I believe it.
«In reality, most of my work is not sustained in the most immediate everyday life, as is the case of Cajero or Cuarentena, which I wrote about COVID with immediate stories, testimonies of those moments when changes are gradual until we were finally free of the pandemic; but rather in the submerged history of the nation that connects with reality, sometimes cyclically, like Huevos, Campo Minado, or others. Sometimes the references are also cultural, specifically musical, like Yo soy del rey del mambo. This is a trait, I believe, of my dramaturgy.
«Some critics have analyzed that even from the treatment of reality, fantastic elements appear in each of the works, sometimes more subtle, others more recent as part of the work’s aesthetic.
«In the final moment of El concierto, for example, Lenon gets up from the park bench and starts walking. It becomes more evident in works like Criatura de isla, which is eminently fantastic, where the characters find something strange, you don’t know if it’s a dog, a bird, and that it is her creature.
«So I always have that interest, which is in my DNA. It is not something I can easily free myself from. It is there, related to my vocation of studying and approaching the history of my country, always questioning, interrogating, because dramaturgy is subversion, in the best sense of the word, as my friend and colleague Amado del Pino used to say; it is finding those triggers, the conflicts that society, the human being is facing, and putting them to live on stage.
All that has to do with my way of living reality. It is not fashion, it is not opportunism, it is something authentic, that I feel, because there is something that is essential: the truth.»
As announced last August 12, Cajero was recognized among the 271 texts received from more than 20 countries, which places the author’s work — also of works like Carnicería, Sputnik, Béisbol, La ventana tejida, Saxo, and Campo minado — at the center of the Ibero-American scene, as this is one of the most recognized contests in the context of Spain and Latin America.
«A lovely morning news that reached me from Spain, announced by the sponsors. Those news items that come from God stimulate me, even to continue writing the new work I am working on for a project that has me very excited.
«I am the only Cuban to deserve a special mention in this Ibero-American contest. Most of the awardees have been Spaniards and Argentines, and therefore I am very happy, and it is a way of celebrating.
«It is very stimulating that among so many works and authors, the jury has selected Cajero, which they described, among other things, as a beautiful, human text of social commitment.
«As it is a text we want to premiere in September at the Sauto Theater, it is a good preamble for that performance that will make us laugh with Alejandro Palomino and Nora Elena Rodríguez, but also reflect from the human aspect of a social issue.
«This special mention is also a way of making my dramaturgy visible, the problems I address, my way of seeing theater, and it is a recognition of Cuban dramaturgy, of which I am a part, and Matanzas dramaturgy, with a tradition of playwrights from the 19th century with Milanés to the youngest.»
Precisely on the eve of his 58th birthday, Ulises finished a dramatic text project «called Nunca me olvides, which has a very particular space, but which has Cuba as its setting for two very well-known actresses I will not reveal at the request of a director friend, whom I will also not reveal, with whom I have already worked on two projects, one that did not come to fruition and this one, and that has me very excited.
«I also finished my most recent novel, and I hope it comes to light through Ediciones Aldabón in October, my book of monologues with women as protagonists La doncella errante y otros monólogos, and Danzón, honorable mention of the Casa de las Américas Prize, which will be published by its editorial fund.
«The premiere of Cajero fills me with expectations, in the last week of September at the Sauto Theater, a work in which people will have a lot of fun based on reality and which is a testimony of the present that will remain as something that happened in the past and that hopefully this situation will not continue. The other thing is to work.
«Theater is testimony, it is questioning, it is poetry, it is life, and it is also a space, a forum, of exchange, of confrontation and social exchange from the Greeks to today.»
Several critics, intellectuals, and creators have referred to the work of the also critic and director of the Casa de la Memoria Escénica. Among them, writer Carlos Zamora considers that «Ulises already accumulates a notable bibliography, in addition to numerous recognitions for his literary work, and among his colleagues he stands out for his passionate work in the preservation of scenic memory.»
«Huevos, for many critics, his most transcendental work,» refers Yerandi Fleites, who stated that «within dramaturgy, it is instituted as a canonical work for Cuban theatrical studies.»
Based on Rodríguez Febles’ dramatic production for children, National Theater Prize winner Rubén Darío Salazar has qualified him as one of the most important writers of contemporaneity, whose works «are an expression of a deep culture, a civism and notable sense of ethics that, with his texts, stirs society, culture, and the country.»
«He is a creator of great intensity who puts passion into everything he undertakes, one of the most emblematic of the city,» values writer, editor, and journalist Norge Céspedes.
