Enrique Buenaventura
Enrique Buenaventura was a prominent Colombian playwright and theater director born in 1925 in Cali, where he established the Experimental Theater in 1955. His diverse background included stints as a manual laborer, sailor, teacher, and journalist, and he studied architecture, sculpture, and painting. Buenaventura's plays sought to provoke social and political change within Colombian society, which he viewed as deeply stratified and marked by inequality. His notable works include "A la diestra de Dios Padre," which critiques the challenges of achieving a perfect universe and garnered acclaim both in Colombia and Europe. Throughout the 1960s, his writing became more politically charged, addressing themes of dictatorship and civil unrest, as exemplified in "La trampa," which critiques both Guatemalan and Colombian leadership. His collection of short stories, "Los papeles del Infierno," further condemns the societal structures upheld by the ruling class. Buenaventura's innovative approach to theater included elements of the theater of cruelty, a style that heightened the emotional experience for audiences. Despite facing censorship and loss of institutional support due to his bold critiques, he continued to advocate for a collaborative, nonhierarchical theater model, influencing future generations of artists in Colombia and beyond.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Enrique Buenaventura
- Born: August 23, 1925
- Birthplace: Cali, Colombia
- Died: December 31, 2003
- Place of death: Cali, Colombia
Biography
Enrique Buenaventura became one of the most strident voices of protest in Colombia after 1955, when he founded the Experimental Theater in Cali, Colombia, where he was born in 1925. Before his association with the Experimental Theater, he worked as a manual laborer, sailor, teacher, and journalist. He studied architecture, sculpture, and painting in Bogotá. He gained recognition for his inventive drama, which was aimed at bringing about social and political change in a stratified society characterized by the unequal treatment of citizens.
Buenaventura’s first play, A la diestra de Dios Padre (in the right hand of God the father), based on a folktale retold by novelist Tomas Carrasquilla, presents a cynical view of life. The protagonist, Peralta, is granted five wishes, which he uses to abolish poverty, sickness, and death. Then, allied with God, he learns of God’s frustration at being unable to effect changes that might save his imperfect universe. This play was presented to enthusiastic accolades in Europe as well as in Colombia. It was followed by two plays that again focus on the impossibility of perfecting an imperfect universe. The protagonist in the second of these, La tragedia del Rey Christophe (the tragedy of King Christophe), a staunch advocate for Haitian independence, eventually declares himself king and creates a dictatorship worse than the one that prevailed during the oppressive French rule. Christophe resembles the God that Buenaventura created in his first play. La tragedia del Rey Christophe was awarded the UNESCO Prize for drama in 1965, two years after its opening in Cali.
During the 1960’s, Buenaventura’s plays became increasingly political. His writing became personal in 1966, when La trampa (the trap) was produced. The play is both an attack on Guatemalan dictator, Jorge Ubico, and an oblique criticism of Colombia’s reigning political figures. This play was followed by the release of a collection of Buenaventura’s short stories, Los papeles del Infierno (documents from Hell), which forthrightly condemn contemporary Colombian society as it was structured by its rulers. His preface to this collection comments on twenty years of widespread civil unrest and violence in Colombia and the conflict’s relationship to Colombia’s illicit drug trade.
Buenaventura became increasingly angry in his writing, and he employed elements of the theater of cruelty advanced earlier by French critic, Antonin Artaud. Buenaventura’s La tortura (the torture) and La autopsia (the autopsy) clearly reflect this movement. There was, not unexpectedly, a price to pay for Buenaventura’s social critiques: In 1969, the Colombian government withdrew financial support from the Experimental Theater and fired Buenaventura and his followers from Cali’s School of Fine Arts, where they taught. The Experimental Theater continued to operate through private funding and became a model of the nonhierarchical approach to theater in which the playwrights, directors, actors, and technicians worked together and at times alternated roles, much as those associated with the United States’ Group Theater did in the 1930’s.