ABOUT
A king with more hubris than know-how. A working class fed up with the status quo. A woman destined to take back the kingdom. With ramifications that trail our modern American political landscape, The Right Brain Project is proud to announce the Midwest premiere of Virgilio Piñera’s Electra Garrigó, directed by Company Member, Kathi Kaity.
On October 23rd, 1948, Electra Garrigó debuted in Havana, Cuba to an irate audience that declared the script was a “spitball thrown at Olympus”. A re-imagining of Sophocles' famous Greek tragedy, the show served as a harsh criticism of the Cuban totalitarian regime, and predicted the necessity of a Revolution that would follow in the next decade. While the show has been hailed a modern classic in its native country, a Midwest production has never been produced...until now.
"What should I do, Electra? What should I do?"
"Do Something."
- Virgilo Piñera, Electra Garrigó
Electra Garrigó was written in 1942 as a call for political rebellion: unknowingly, playwright Virgilio Piñera’s would predict the revolution that would occur in the next decade. The play - now hailed as the birth of modern Cuban theatre - has faced an uphill battle in solidifying its place in theatrical history.
On October 23, 1948, the adaptation premiered in Havana, Cuba, under the direction of Francisco Morín and his collective, Teatro Promoteo. The newly-formed company took its name from the Greek mythic hero who stole fire from the gods to the benefit of mankind. Opening night of Electra Garrigó quickly devolved into chaos, as many irate audience members - outraged by the “bastardization” of the Greek canon and the show’s explicitly radical politics - left mid-performance. One reviewer walked out after famously shouting the work was a “spitball thrown at Olympus.” A decade would pass before the play was staged again.
The second (known) performance of Electra Garrigó was staged in Havana in February 1958, to an audience eagerly awaiting the overthrow of Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista. The play’s resonance had now changed with the political climate, and audiences cheered as suggestions were made onstage to kill “the King”.
Following the transition of power to Castro and his rebels, Electra Garrigó resurfaced as a powerful symbol of the revolutionary spirit, even being restaged before foreign luminaries including Jean-Paul Sartre and Simon de Beauvoir. The play was presented on Cuban television and radio stations and was performed as the official selection of UNEAC’s “World Theatre Day” in 1964. In addition to its prediction of the Revolution, Piñera’s work also demonstrated some of the earliest examples of Absurdity, a movement that would later be popularized by Beckett and Ionesco.
Unfortunately, Piñera’s outspokenness and homosexuality propelled him to fall out of favor with Castro’s regime, and his plays were blacklisted from new stagings. The playwright would die in 1979, never seeing his legacy and vision fully embraced or understood.
Electra Garrigó lived on, though, enjoying yet another resurgence in popularity during the 1980s. Piñera and his work were posthumously restored to favorable public opinion, as both the Cuban government and its people progressed its social policies. The play is now celebrated as the birth of the modern Cuban theatre aesthetic, and is beginning to gain exposure on an international scale.