José Ramón Brene

Theater director. One of the most important playwrights of Cuban theater. Emerged from the Dramaturgy Seminar of the National Theater in the sixties, where a man full of grace and popular wit was discovered, gifted with the ability to tell stories of the past and the present.

He was born in the city of Cárdenas. After completing his primary studies in Colón and secondary studies at the Instituto de Matanzas, passing up to the third year of high school.

Later he moved to the United States, where he studied at a college in North Carolina for a year and a half. He enrolled by mail in Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad de México and when traveling to that country, lack of money forced him to stop in New Orleans. There he enlisted as a cleaner on a Panamanian ship (1943).

Between 1945 and 1949 he sailed on oil tankers and merchant ships. In 1952, after several years in Cuba, he returned to sea as a chief engineer, work he performed until 1959 and which he alternated with various jobs between voyages. During all these years he visited France, North America, North Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, the USSR, the Persian Gulf and wrote an extensive novel that he finally destroyed.

After his return to Cuba in 1959 he entered the Dramaturgy Seminar of the National Council of Culture, where he wrote his first play, "La peste viene de al lado", before graduating in 1962. Already from the previous year he worked as a dramaturgy advisor in the Brigadas Covarrubias.

In 1962 the premiere of "Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja" was produced, under the direction of the Milanés group and directed by Adolfo de Luis. The impact and success achieved by this work have made it a classic example of dramaturgy of the revolutionary period. There have been numerous revivals of it and it has been performed abroad and also brought to television.

In 1962 his plays "Pasado a la criolla" and "La muerte de un perro" were equally premiered.

During the following years he continued premiering works such as "La viuda triste" (1963), "La fiebre negra" (1964), "Romeo y su prieta" (1964), "Chismes de carnaval" (1966) and "El corsario y la abadesa" (1967), for which he received an honorable mention in the UNEAC competition (1967).

He wrote occasionally for radio and was an advisor to the groups Teatro del Tercer Mundo and Teatro Político Bertolt Brecht. The latter premiered his work "El ingenioso criollo don Matías Pérez" in 1978.

He served as a theater judge in the 26 de Julio, 13 de Marzo and UNEAC competitions. In 1985 he participated in the First National Meeting of Playwrights, called by the UNEAC Delegation and the Provincial Culture Department of Camagüey, an event in which he gave a reading of his work "Perpetua y la cooperativa".

He was a member of the Literature Section of UNEAC and a contributor to La Gaceta de Cuba and Casa de las Américas.

When he died he left an extensive unperformed and unpublished repertoire, to which critics assert, without specifying creation dates in many cases, belong Tebas contra los siete, Azúcar (1970), Celestina al teléfono (1975), El bohío de mamá Yaya, Un gallo para la Ikú, Yoya Belén, La divina tragedia, La lámpara de Aladino, La lata de estrellas, Aquel barrio nuestro, Escándalo en la Trapa, Las puyas, El jorobado de la cañona, La guaracha de los tres quilos, Miss Candonga, among others.

In the 1989-90 biennium several revivals of his landmark Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja took place in the capital neighborhood La Güinera, with varied casts and in an adaptation in which the residents of the place themselves participated. For many years he worked as a dramatic advisor in the Theater and Dance Department of the CNC and later in the MINCULT.

His works El gallo de San Isidro and Matías Pérez el ingenioso criollo have been published and performed.

The dramatic work of José Ramón Brene has been considered a model of strong popular roots, has been discussed and included in anthologies and studies of Cuban theater. His texts are classics of Cuban dramaturgy that received the applause of critics and audiences. In his works the popular and poetic are fused, the historical and the contemporary, his language investigates the roots of the Cuban spirit, its culture, its characters, the way of speaking and living.

Awards and Distinctions:
Prize and honorable mention in the UNEAC competition (1970) with the works Fray Sabino and El camarada Don Quijote, el de Guasabacuta Arriba y su compañero Sancho, el de Guasabacuta Abajo, respectively.
In 1962 he also received an honorable mention for theater in the Casa de Las Américas competition with his work La viuda triste. Eight years later he won the José Antonio Ramos prize from UNEAC with the work Fraile Sabino and honorable mention with the one titled El camarada Don Quijote, el de Guanabacuta arriba y su fiel compañero Sancho Panza, el de Guanabacuta Abajo.

Active Bibliography:
Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja y Pasado a la criolla (Theater), 1963, 97 pp.
El gallo de San Isidro (Theater), 1964, T, 161 pp. Un loco y su sombra (Theater), 1965, 99 pp.
Theater, 1965, 193 pp.
Fray Sabino, 1971, 157 pp.
Theater, 1982, 351 pp.
Pasado a la criolla y otras obras, 1984, 368 pp.