José Triana
José Triana was a significant Cuban playwright born in 1931 in Hatuey, Camaguey, Cuba. His early life coincided with a turbulent political climate, as the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista dominated Cuba until 1959, when Fidel Castro's revolution changed the landscape of the nation. Disillusioned with the political situation, Triana moved to Spain in the late 1950s, where he wrote his first notable play, "El mayor general hablará de teogonía," which critiques religious faith and societal expectations through the lens of a lower-class family. This work, along with others like "Medea en el espejo" and "La noche de los asesinos," garnered him recognition and several prestigious awards during the 1960s.
Despite his success, Triana's dissenting voice against Castro's regime led to imprisonment through forced labor, which ultimately pushed him to leave Cuba for Paris in 1980. In Paris, he continued his creative endeavors, producing works such as "Worlds Apart" and writing scripts for film, including "Rosa la China." Triana remained active in the theater world until his death in 2018. His legacy reflects a complex interplay of artistic expression and political resistance, highlighting the challenges faced by artists in oppressive regimes.
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Subject Terms
José Triana
- Born: January 4, 1931
- Birthplace: Hatuey, Camaguey, Cuba
- Died: March 4, 2018
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Two years after José Triana’s birth in 1931 in Hatuey, Camaguey, Cuba, Fulgencio Batista grasped control of the country. He ruled until 1959, when his regime was overthrown in a revolution led by Fidel Castro. In the late 1950s, Triana, disenchanted with the political situation in his country, went to Spain, where he wrote his first play, El mayor general hablará de teogonía. This play focuses on a lower-class family—a husband, wife, and the wife’s sister—who have accepted favors from a landlord, the mayor general (major general) in the play’s title. The play, whose dialogue often mocks the language of the Bible and of Roman Catholic liturgy, questions the validity of religious faith.
The early scenes prepare audiences for the arrival of the legendary major general. The husband and sister-in-law, fearing his condemnation because he knew of their clandestine love affair many years ago, plan to kill him when he arrives. When he finally arrives, however, they abort their murderous plans and all three bow down before him. The major general, rather than disapproving of them, is disinterested and bored, rather like the God of the Deists.
Triana implies that people have expectations that God, represented by the major general, can not fulfill. Religious worshippers are weak, crass, and shortsighted. Triana suggests that had his characters eliminated the major general, they would surely have created a replacement. This commentary on religion, anathema during Batista’s regime, was enthusiastically embraced by Castro when he assumed power.
During the early years of Castro’s regime, Cuban theater was among the most vibrant in the Hispanic American countries. Triana returned to Cuba, hopeful about its future. He was hired by the government publishing house in 1960. In 1962, El mayor general hablará de teogonía was published along with two of his other plays, Medea en el espejo (1962; Medea in the Mirror, 1966), a play drawing on Triana’s strong classical background, and El parque de la fraternidad, whose title, translated as “brotherhood park,” is calculatedly ironic.
Castro wanted to use Cuban writers to espouse and support his political agenda. Many writers fell into line. Triana did not. He gained considerable recognition in the 1960s, receiving the Casa de las Americas Prize for Drama in 1965 and the Gallo de La Habana Award for the best play at the Sixth Latin American Theater Festival held in Havana in 1966. His two-act play, La noche de los asesinos (1965; The Criminals, 1971), received an award at the Colombian Theater Festival.
Soon, however, his dissidence unnerved the regime, and Triana was sentenced to serve a term as a conscript doing involuntary labor to punish his unwillingness to do Castro’s bidding. He remained in Cuba through the 1970s, but in 1980, when Castro permitted limited numbers of artists to leave the country, Triana went to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life. He wrote Worlds Apart, a play that was produced in London in 1987, and Cruzando el puente, which was staged by Ricard Salvat in Spain in 1992. He continued to work into the twenty-first century, and in 2002, the Valeria Sarmiento film Rosa la China, for which he wrote the script, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Triana died in Paris, France, on March 4, 2018, at the age of eighty-seven.
Bibliography
Dauster, Frank. "The Game of Chance: The Theatre of Jose Triana." Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 1969, pp. 3–8.
"Fellows in Creative Writing: Triana, José." CINTAS Foundation, cintasfoundation.org/fellows/creative-writers/190-jose-triana. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.
Lima, Robert. "Jose Triana and the Tragic Mode: Three Plays." Neophilologus, vol. 88, 2004, pp. 559–68.
Taylor, Diana. "Theatre and Revolution: José Triana." Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/theatre-and-revolution-jose-triana/html/a18fa208-a0fa-11e1-b1fb-00163ebf5e63‗3.html. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.
Triana, Jose. "José Triana." Interview by Ricard Salvat. TDR: The Drama Review, vol. 51, no. 2, 2007.