‘AZUL’ FOCUSES ON QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR
PLAYWRIGHT C. QUINTANA BASED SOME ELEMENTS OF THE STORY ON HER OWN CUBAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Over the years, C. Quintana has written nearly a dozen plays. But several years ago, the queer CubanAmerican playwright realized something was missing in her scripts, and she wanted to do something about it.
While debuting a play at a Latinx theater festival in Chicago, she began speaking with an actor friend about how few of the festival’s plays told the stories of lesbian women, particularly lesbian women of color. That planted the seed for “Azul,” an all-female memory play set in both New York and Cuba that make its West Coast premiere this month at Diversionary Theatre. Although Quintana, who goes by the name CQ, said the play is not an autobiographical tale of her family and their immigration from Cuba long ago, it does touch on subjects close to her heart.
“Azul” is the story Yadra, an aging New York woman battling Alzheimer’s disease who finds herself wrapped up in her childhood memories of leaving her country and her beloved aunt behind in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Yadra’s stories inspire her American-born daughter, Zelia, and Zelia’s wife, Loré, to travel to Cuba to solve the mystery of why her great aunt chose to stay behind.
CQ was raised in New Orleans, but her heritage is Cuban. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. as children, and her grandmother left behind family she never saw again. To research the play, CQ traveled to Cuba in 2016 on a weeklong trip sponsored by CubaOne, a Miamibased foundation that offers free trips for young Cuban-Americans, ages 22 to 34, so they can reconnect with their roots.
While in Cuba, CQ said she got to speak with distant family members for the first time, and she met a Cuban gay couple who had been committed to one another for decades.
“Azul” made its world premiere at Southern Rep Theatre in New Orleans in 2019. Before that, it underwent a series of readings at theaters that included a 2018 stop at San Diego Repertory Theatre, where it was presented in Amigos Del Rep’s Latinx New Play Festival. CQ calls “Azul’s” return to San Diego a “full-circle moment,” and she’s honored to have it staged at Diversionary, the nation’s third-oldest LGBTQ theater.
“The team at Diversionary has understood and championed the work in a way that has refreshed my ideas about what’s possible in the American theater, when work is produced from a heart-centered place,” she said.
Diversionary executive artistic director Matt M. Morrow said he’s excited to produce “Azul” as a fresh alternative to the many holiday plays and musicals featured on most local stages this fall.
“CQ is one of the most exciting emerging playwrights working today,” Morrow said in a statement. “Her tale of three generations of Cuban women and discovering one’s queer heritage is deeply romantic and renews our understanding of love and legacy.”
The Diversionary production stars Zuleyma Guevara as Yadra, Sofia Sassone as Zelia and Olivia Espinosa as Loré. Guitarist Diana Cervera will perform original music written for the play.
“Azul” is directed by Maria Patrice Amon, who is Latinx projects producer at San Diego Rep. Amon said that she loves the poetry of CQ’s writing and the important issues the play tackles.
“This smartly loving play gives us the space to process loss and also think about important things like colorism in the Latinx community,” Amon said.
CQ said the play has been well received by critics, but some theaters have hesitated to book it because some lines from the play are in Spanish. But she said none of the plot will be lost to non-Spanish speakers and the use of Spanish is important in telling Yadra’s story.
“I just want to say to audience members not to be afraid of the Spanish,” she said. “It’s there for a reason, and you can enjoy it just as much if you don’t speak Spanish.”