New York/The Cuban Cultural Center of New York invites you to a performance in English of Outside the Gamea work by Cuban playwright Abel González Melo, directed by The Other’s Theater Project. The performance will be followed by a meeting with the author, during which the public will be able to talk about the piece and its historical background.
The work reconstructs the so-called “Padilla case”, one of the most controversial episodes in Cuban cultural history after 1959. In 1968, the poet Heberto Padilla received the Julián del Casal Prize from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) for his book Out of the gamea collection of poems that aroused rejection by the authorities for its critical content.
The conflict reached its climax in 1971, when Padilla was arrested and, after several weeks of imprisonment, he staged a public self-incrimination before writers and intellectuals gathered at Uneac. The episode caused a rupture between the Cuban Government and numerous foreign intellectuals who until then had supported the Revolution.
Starting from this event, González Melo examines the relationships between artistic creation, political power, censorship and intellectual freedom. The staging proposes to recover the voices and contradictions of an episode whose consequences marked the cultural life of the Island for decades.
The presentation is part of the activities to disseminate Cuban culture organized by the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.
