Jacinto Abraham Rodríguez

Cuban playwright and screenwriter, born in Guanabacoa (Havana), who is considered one of the best portraitists of Cuban identity.

In his works, the construction of archetypal characters from Cuba's marginalized environments stands out, described with certain doses of humor, criticism, and sensitivity. He was also a babalao priest, one of the Afro-Cuban religions practiced on the island.

Abraham Rodríguez wrote one of the most important dramas in Cuban literature: Andoba, o Mientras llegan los camiones, premiered in 1979 by the theater group Teatro Político Bertolt Brecht, which would stage most of his works.

Andoba even gave its name to an entire theatrical movement, "andobismo," of great importance during the 1980s, characterized by the portrayal of the island's most marginalized neighborhoods. The authors of this movement used these descriptions to strengthen the values of the Revolution and show marginalization as a legacy of capitalism. Other notable works include El escache, o El tiro por la culata (1981), El brete o De buenas intenciones (1983), La barbacó (1983), and El dedo en el merengue (1987).

But Abraham Rodríguez also owes his enormous popularity in his country to his work in Cuban television, as author of successful series and telenovelas. El eco de las piedras, Tierra y sangre, and Los herederos, his last creation for this medium, are some of these television productions.

He also wrote poetry (En el sitio del ruido, David Prize in 1967), several collections of short stories and novels, and the screenplay for the film Benny Moré (2005), by Cuban filmmaker Jorge Luis sánchez.

Abraham was a popular figure in the neighborhood, especially after the premiere of his work Andoba o Mientras llegan los camiones; and because his house was visited by famous people in television, such as actors Carlos Gilí, Luis Alberto García, father, René de la Cruz, and Mario Balmaseda; the latter caused such a stir among the neighborhood women that, according to Domingo, the building superintendent, "they looked like decrepit hens on their way to the slaughterhouse… as if they had never seen a man."

Andoba had premiered at the end of 1974 at the Mella theater, and it became a huge success within the city, but particularly in the playwright's neighborhood as it brought the characters from his surroundings to the stage.

He was born in the Cayo Hueso neighborhood in the 1940s and grew up in the vicinity of Trillo Park. He had as a playmate and childhood mischief companion an then-unknown Juan Formell and the future director and actor Erick Romay. His house was near the solar La madama, the same one that Sindo Garay visited to have his guitar repaired; and in whose courtyard more than once he offered a recital or serenade to cover the cost of the instrument repair for not having at that moment the two pesos and fifty that Victorino charged.

Each of the characters in Andoba were human types he had known, lived with, and seen grow socially and humanely, or simply sink deeper and deeper socially by the workings of the environment.

Perhaps that was the reason why that work shook the foundations of the city. It exposed a world that years before playwright José Ramón Brenes had glimpsed when he wrote Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja; with the only difference being that Abraham's character has no redemption, the environment prevails.

I must say that for many children of El Vedado, discovering that story was a devastating blow. Terms like "environment," overcrowding, and marginality were unknown and distant from our vital and social circle. We lived in the bubble of a time in which each Havana neighborhood was defined by the jobs and studies of its inhabitants and the piece of El Vedado in which I was born and grew up was dominated by children of doctors, professionals from other fields, and people from the arts. All mixed together and measuring ourselves by one standard: the grades obtained at school and home education.

Andoba gave Abraham such fame in the neighborhood that he found himself obliged more than once to tell all his neighbors a little-known truth: it was in no way the history of his life or his family; it was the world he had left behind when he discovered reading and, given his friendship with Erick Romay, began to frequent theaters and enrolled in a writing academy that existed at the National Library in the mid-1960s.

Later he had been a truck driver's assistant at the end of that decade when he joined the Juvenile Column of the Centennial; and his chief driver was none other than Serafín "Tato" Quiñones. The two of them would recount, years later over drinks at the Hurón Azul bar, that they rarely managed to fulfill their travel plans because they were devoted to reading every book that fell into their hands and avoided major scolding because the brigade leader was also from the Cayo Hueso neighborhood and also absented himself to attend a course at the ICAIC. He was none other than Germinal Hernández, one of the great sound technicians of Cuban cinema and who had just married filmmaker Sara Gómez.

And here is one of the strange things about Cuban culture of those years: Andoba, María Antonia, and De cierta manera are sister works in many ways; especially when it comes to exploring a country in change, but from the perspective of its actors, from within, from the viewpoint of those who have lived the space they propose to change, that they question.

The aesthetics of blackness, as wisely coined by critic Salvador Redonet, "…that (…) rather than lamenting itself stands as a guideline to reinvent patterns and seek future man.

And certainly Andoba was a watershed for Cuban society; the same as Abraham's next work: La barbacoa; in which he allows himself the luxury of putting Los Van Van in a theater on opening night.

Formell recounted that when Abraham told him the theme of the work and asked him to compose the music, he made a regression in time and went back to traverse the solares where he played and where many of his childhood friends lived. But above all it was an act of redemption for those who, despite difficulties, struggle to make a vital leap and the pleasure of working with a childhood friend; one of the musketeers as he, Erick, and Abraham called themselves when they met at Trillo Park after school before going to see "cowboy movies" at the Strand cinema.

Parallel to this work he wrote Un bolero para Eduardo; autobiographical work according to his words and which was his entry into the world of TV at the request of Erik Romay and advised by Maite Vera.

After that his life was a succession of tragedies, especially when they discovered a brain tumor in him that was limiting his capacity to write and part of his vision, but it did not deprive his friends and acquaintances of his sense of humor, his witticisms, and most importantly, he never stopped dreaming about his next work, the one we would see once he overcame the illness.

Actor Rolando Núñez recounted that the character of El Gato that he played in the work Andoba redefined the Cuban rogue and was the inspiration for his most popular role: el Botaperros. But that what was most important were men he had known in his Jesús María neighborhood, the same one in which he had met Abraham more than once when Carlos Gilí introduced them the day he joined a theater group as a professional actor.

Abraham Rodríguez died on January 12, 2005, victim of cancer, and Andoba has outlived him, a pity that in these times his text has been forgotten. Cuba today has those characters that the work represents and there are neighborhoods where they still wait for the trucks to arrive so they can continue transforming.

A prolific author, Rodríguez wrote the screenplay for the film about Benny Moré. He also wrote the screenplays for several television productions, such as "Tierra y sangre," "Un bolero para Eduardo," and "El eco de las piedras," and he also worked on the screenplay for the telenovela "Oh, La Habana."