# Gustavo Robreño Puentes

**Date of birth:** December 18, 1873

**Date of death:** March 11, 1957

**Categories:** Arts, theater, actor, director, playwright, Society

Cuban playwright, actor and theater director. One of the emblematic figures of what is called popular theater.

Gustavo Robreño was born on December 18, 1873 in Pinar del Río, the western extreme of the Island of Cuba. He was the great-great-grandson, grandson and son of "comic" artists, which explains why he received his most important theatrical training naturally, from within his own family; this also explains why his artistic life began early and why the theatrical phenomenon, with all its textual and spectacular complexity, captivated him deeply. Without a doubt, when one reviews Cuban theater, the name Gustavo Robreño demands particular reflection. He was an important figure in the Cuban theater scene from different angles, particularly within what is usually called popular theater. He was a playwright, actor and theater director. He also worked as a journalist and novelist.

As an actor, he made his debut at age five in a children's company, directed by Justo Soret, of which he became a leading figure by the time he reached adolescence. In 1893 he traveled through Spain, where he connected with young people who would later belong to the so-called Generation of '98. There he would be persecuted and imprisoned for his separatist ideas and his affiliation with the "boys of the Acera del Louvre"; that is, with the group of young people who gathered in Havana, in the place known by that name, to express their sympathy for the independence cause.

He returned to Cuba during full Yankee interference at the end of the century and worked alongside his friend Regino López in the Lara theater. In 1900 he joined the Alhambra company and remained with it until two years before its dissolution.

This company was created by Regino López, Miguel Arias and Federico Villoch, under the name of Teatro Alhambra and had the purpose of creating a genre that would capture, like the bufo Theater of the nineteenth century, Cuban types and customs. More than two thousand vernacular theatrical pieces were performed in this theater, but unfortunately most of the scripts were lost. The texts that have been recovered barely constitute a tenth of that production. Its artistic cast was initially made up of personnel who had some previous experience in staging this type of theater and who were required to have the ability to act, sing and dance. The company's talent also included musical creators, a primary factor in the realization of the works that would characterize this theater. Because of its peculiarities and its ability to draw a heterogeneous audience representative of the most diverse social sectors, the term "alhambrescas" was coined to qualify a theatrical work of the type presented at Teatro Alhambra.

Gustavo Robreño joined this company in the capacity of actor and writer. As an actor, he was responsible for portraying typical characters of great importance in the various works that were staged. He also excelled as a great imitator of characters from the national politics of the time. As a writer, he was one of the most prolific; sometimes he composed alone and other times in collaboration with his brother Francisco. Humor with very effective use of double meaning and political irony in favor of Cuba's progress are characteristic ingredients of Gustavo Robreño's theater.

Among his most notable pieces are Buffalo Exposition (1900), La madre de los tomates (1899); Toros y gallos (1901), El jipijapa (1902), El ciclón (1906), Napoleón, Dos boers improvisados, Los dardanelos, El bombardeo de Ambares, La paz del mundo, among others. His most famous work, written in collaboration with his brother, is Tin-tan te comiste un pan o El velorio de Pachencho (also known today as Pachencho vivo o muerto), which has been performed on stage on numerous occasions with great success and whose staging is still always awaited by an audience that finds it entertaining and not at all obsolete. He also wrote zarzuelas, including La emperatriz del Pilar, premiered at the Teatro Martí in 1936, with which he closed his authorial production.

His chronicles and articles on national and foreign life, theater and the country's customs appeared in Diario de la Marina, La Discusión, La Prensa, La Lucha, as well as in the weekly publications Gráfico, La Política Cómica and La Semana, of which he was a founder. For his journalistic publications he used the pseudonym Calabobos. He also wrote a History of Cuba which he subtitled "humorous narrative", a book titled Saltapericos and the historical novel La acera del Louvre.

The last-mentioned title deserves separate commentary since it is one of the first significant examples of twentieth-century historical narrative. Its pages reconstruct the atmosphere of the three final decades of the nineteenth century in the Cuban capital and, especially, that which is linked to a youth qualified as "chivalrous and festive". However, it has been noted, to the detriment of the text's literary quality, that it is stuffed with historical data which, used in the function of period reconstruction, stifle the narrative.

In 1936 he closed his cycle of devotion to the stage in both acting and writing. His name remains as one of the pillars of the Cuban vernacular stage.

Long-lived, Gustavo Robreño died in Havana on March 11, 1957.