Francisco Covarrubias

Actor and playwright. The most important figure of the stage in Cuba during the first half of the 19th century. Considered the founder of national theater.

He was born in La Habana. He studied philosophy and Latin and graduated as a surgeon. He married and established himself as a doctor in one of the sugar mills near the city.

The attraction he felt for theater he expressed first as an amateur actor until, in 1800, he answered a request from the Circo del Campo de Marte, which was looking for figures for its productions. On November 2 of that year, he debuted as a comedian and obtained the applause of the public and the praise of the critics. From that moment on, his trajectory is composed of a succession of successes until his retirement in 1850.

He became the most applauded of his time, also the one who earned the highest salary in that field and the one who probably introduced in 1812 the "negrito," a very important character in Cuban bufo theater.

As a curious fact, the day Covarrubias made his debut on the stage of the capital's theater El Circo, his entire family dressed in full mourning.

The tragic character assumed by his family responded to the canons of the time. At the age of 25, Covarrubias abandoned a promising career as a doctor to dedicate himself to theater, which he approached as an amateur and ended up being one of its most outstanding representatives in the country.

He performed on all Havana stages and also on those in Matanzas, Cárdenas, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Regla, Marianao, Güines and Guanabacoa. He was parodied by his colleagues and even transformed into a dramatic character.

Three biographies were written about him, and in 1841, even a lithograph of his portrait was made for public sale.

He was the first Cuban interpreter to enjoy enormous fame among men and women of the theater, both Cuban and Spanish. His contemporaries affirm that he shone alongside the most outstanding foreign actors, who presented themselves on our stages for their proven histrionic abilities.

He is recognized as the most important figure of the stage in Cuba for a period of half a century.

He wrote a good quantity of sainetes, but only the titles of these managed to survive him. Some of them are: Las tertulias de La Habana (1814), La feria de Carraguao (1815), Los velorios de La Habana (1818), La valla de gallos en los baños de San Antonio (1820), El peón de tierra adentro (1825), No hay amor si no hay dinero o Doña Juana y el limeño (1826), El montero en el teatro o El cómico de Ceiba Mocha (1829), El gracioso o El guajiro sofocado (1830), Los dos graciosos (1841).

He is recognized as the creator of the characters of the Negrito and the Montero, who have become mythical creatures of the Cuban stage.

Covarrubias placed on the stage types, environments, music and popular dances. The titles of his sainetes, some reference from the press and the comparison with those signed by Don Ramón de la Cruz allow establishing the hypothesis of the Cubanization of a good part of these, adapting to our sphere characters and plot.

His sainetes influenced some dramatic sensibilities that emerge during the decades of the 30s and 40s as his epigones.

The most outstanding case is that of José Agustín Millán, our first comedy writer, who was his friend and one of his biographers.

Covarrubias made his last stage appearance on February 1, 1850, in Cárdenas. The passage of time was making itself felt on his jokes and his creatures, and the caricato was forced to say goodbye.

On June 22 of that year he died in conditions of poverty, since although he came to earn considerable sums, he squandered his fortune.

He died poor and almost forgotten after a long and brilliant stage career.

This tireless man of the stage was the initiator and creator of the so-called Cuban género chico. His name has become a symbol of national theater. The seed of Covarrubias bore fruit in a popular theater that gave rise to countless creators ranging from those saineteros of the 19th century to the most brilliant contemporary creators. In honor of his memory one of the most prestigious theater halls in the country located in the Teatro Nacional bears his name.

Francisco Covarrubias remained intimately connected with Cuban theater through almost half a century. He lived it and enjoyed it intensely.