Arca Images Premieres Carlos Celdrán Work ‘Variations on an Insignificant Theme’

Actors Laura Ramos and Daniel Romero play She and The Author in the Spanish language drama ” Variations on an Insignificant Theme” (Variaciones para un Tema Insignificante) by Cuban-Spanish dramatist Carlos Celdrán. (Photo by Alexa Kuve, courtesy of Arca Images)

A woman, identified only as She, reflects on a decision she made in the past—one that has affected her entire life. She and another character, known only as The Author, reconstruct the day her life changed forever. That’s the plot of the world premiere of “Variations on an Insignificant Theme” (Variaciones para un Tema Insignificante) by Cuban-Spanish dramatist Carlos Celdrán, resident director at Arca Images.

“It is an examination of conscience, a meditation on mistrust — on fear embedded within our private lives, acting as a mechanism of the power that dominates us,” says Celdrán, who also directs the  Spanish-language play.

He says the idea emerged years ago from an idea he had that would potentially be a monologue.

Cuban-Spanish director and playwright Carlos Celdrán. (Photo by Alejandro Gutiérrez, courtesy of the artist)

I wrote a few pages, a first draft,” he says, “about a woman seeking to understand herself and to recognize why she made a certain decision at a specific moment in her life — a decision that would later have a profound impact on her.”

Laura Ramos and Daniel Romero star in the play, which opens Friday, April 24 and runs through Sunday, May 3 at the Westchester Cultural Arts Center.

“It has been a recurring theme in my writing for the theater,” says Celdrán, “the exploration of who we once were, and the subsequent metamorphoses we undergo as individuals — changes that distance us from our former selves and that we later struggle to recognize. The most persistent idea has been to construct a collective biography that explains — that explains to me — why we accepted living through the experiences we have lived.”

In “Variations,” the playwright returns to autofiction, a mix of autobiography and fiction, as a writing strategy— just as he has done in several of his previous works — and explains that, for him, it is a way of “bearing witness, of verifying what I recount—what I want to be accepted as legitimate, rather than merely as fiction. It is a matter of recording, rather than fabulating.”

A diaspora permeated by trauma, pain, the revisiting of memory, and the imperative of reinvention constitutes an integral part of Celdrán’s dramaturgy — a body of work that has been steadily solidifying since he resumed authorship of many of his stage productions over a decade ago.

The vast and diverse landscape of the Cuban exile has been a recurring presence in his most recent productions.  As in “Papier Maché” and “Acceptance Speech” (Discurso de Agradecimiento), the realm of “Greater Cuba” reappears in “Variations.”

Laura Ramos (She) and Daniel Romero (The Author) in a scene from Arca Images’ “Variations on an Insignificant Theme.” (Photo by Alexa Kuve, courtesy of Arca Images).

Thus, Miami — one of the historical and contemporary hubs around which this “Greater Cuba” gravitates — is inevitably part of a map constantly reinventing and repopulating itself with stories from both the past and the present.

“Living outside of Cuba has profoundly influenced this panoramic vision of Cuban civility,” reflects Celdrán. “I believe it is impossible for our contemporary dramaturgy to exist today without doing so — without viewing us in this light: dispersed, yet united by bonds that transcend the myth of the land itself and its borders. An insular dramaturgy would be utterly exhausted without the perspective of those who left — those who inhabit Cuba through diverse narratives and modes of existence, yet remain united by the same pain, the same trauma.”

In Celdrán’s productions, the meticulous selection of scenic elements stands out. From the music, lighting design, and set design to the costumes and the poster, everything forms part of a visual and sonic realm that transforms Celdrán’s shows into a thought-provoking universe.

An important element of the staging is the music. Bach’s “Cello Suites” provides an unceasing score, interwoven throughout the piece.

Daniel Romero is The Author and Laura Ramos is She in “Variations on an Insignificant Theme.” at Arca Images. (Photos by Jorge Roguez and Manuel Fiestas, courtesy of the artists).

With “Variations,” longtime admirers of Celdrán’s extensive body of work and new audiences witness one of the author’s recurring themes—and motifs.

In his own words, he describes it like this: “The ceaseless quest for the past, for memory, and for the secret, collective biography we all share. We are not merely children of the private sphere; we are children of a social project that seized control of our destinies. The theater ought to know this.”

WHAT: World premiere of “Variations on an Insignificant Theme” by Carlos Celdrán (in Spanish with simultaneous audio English translation)

WHEN: 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. Sunday. Opens Friday, April 24 through Sunday, May 3.

WHERE: Westchester Cultural Arts Center, 7930 SW 40th St., Miami

COST: $30, $25 for seniors (ages 65 and older), students with a valid ID.

INFORMATION: (305) 934-5103 and www.arcaimages.org

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