Cuban actress Adria Santana will perform her monologue Las Penas Saben Nadar Nov. 19 in Barnes Hall.
Cornell audiences will have a rare opportunity to experience notable Cuban theater and music performances next week.
Acclaimed Cuban actress Adria Santana will perform her hour-long monologue, Las Penas Saben Nadar (Sorrows Can Swim), Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Barnes Hall. The performance is free and open to the public.
Santana comes to Cornell following a successful engagement in New York City, where she starred in the play Vagos Rumores (Vague Rumors), based on the life of Cuba's premier playwright Albelardo Estorino.
On Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m., Pablo Menendez, Santana's husband, will join area musicians for a free public performance of "music without borders" at the Unitarian Church, 306 N. Aurora St.
Santana's monologue will be performed in Spanish. An English translation of the monologue will immediately follow the Spanish performance. A discussion, in both languages, with Santana and Menendez will conclude the evening.
Santana is one of Cuba's leading ladies, performing on stage, television and film. She won the 1996 National Theatre Festival's Best Actress Award and the 1995 May Vazquez Prize for best actress at the Tenth Festival of IberoAmerican Theater. Santana's performance in Vagos Rumores won the 1993 Francisco Covarrubia Prize from the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists.
The monologue Las Penas Saben Nadar by Estorino explores the conflicts and struggles of "the actress" through her problems within the theater world as well as Cuban society, while making a reflective exploration of the woman within as the speaker looks at her own life. The character examines herself ruthlessly and relentlessly as she reveals her deepest emotions.
Writing for a Cuban publication, a critic wrote "Las Penas Saben Nadar ... is easily accessible without concessions, intellectual without rhetoric, humorous without superficiality, Cuban without localisms. These elements are more than sufficient to produce an enriching flight between 'the actress' and her public."
Santana's performance is co-sponsored by the Latin American Studies Program, the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and the Department of Romance Studies. Funding for the performance was provided by the Cornell Council on the Arts, the Rose Goldsen Fund and the Student Activities Finance Commission.