Interview with Nilo Cruz

JODY MCAULIFFE How would you describe your relationship to Cuba?

NILO CRUZ I left Cuba when I was ten years old. That was in 1970. I left with both of my parents, leaving two sisters behind. They were older and they had gotten married. They could not leave the country because their husbands were of military age.

So your parents stuck around for a while after the revolution?

We were definitely not the upper or middle class that left in the early sixties. Actually, my father went to prison when I was two years old. He was caught leaving the country on a boat. He had attempted to go at that time in the early sixties in order to make way for us, to get to the United States as a refugee. But he got caught and became a political prisoner.

Was it his release from prison that finally prompted your exit?

My mother really wanted to leave the country. We were for the revolution at the beginning, and when the revolution started to get more leftist, you know, they had particular agendas that tended to be more Marxist, that’s when my parents thought, “Oh,” especially when they started to take property away from people and when everything became nationalized; they thought it was time to go.

And they went to Miami?

Yes.

And what was that like?

Well, imagine being new immigrants—not immigrants—exiles, there’s a big difference. They had heard of the violence of the United States. There were a lot of racial tensions during that time in Miami. I led a very sheltered life as a boy. And then, of course, having to deal with a new language. I was starting to go to school and learn English. My mother started to work at a purse factory, and my father started to work at a shoestore.

What got you interested in theater?

I always wrote poetry when I was in my teens. Theater, you know, it’s funny because it sort of fell in my lap. I had a couple of friends who were taking theater classes, and I visited the class once and really loved the professor. My professor used to teach theater with a book of Krishnamurti in one hand and a Stanislavsky book in the other hand. This was at a community college in downtown Miami. Besides being an actor and a professor, she was also a poet. I really felt at home there. It was almost like a calling. I started to take classes with her. Instead of bringing scenes to class, I would write my own scenes. And then a lot of the students wanted to be in my scenes. She felt that I was not an actor. She said, “I think you’re a director or a playwright.” Much later on I met Irene Fornes. She came to Florida and conducted a workshop. During that time I was working in cargo at the airport. She said, “I do these workshops at Intar in New York, and at the moment I have one place in the workshop, so if you’re interested you can come up to New York with me.” But I had to make a decision right away, so I quit my work. It was a matter of calling them on Friday or Saturday and then getting on an airplane on Sunday. And from then on my life changed.

What was it about the workshop that was most influential?

I had made a tremendous connection to her work when I read Mud.

Great play.

Yeah, and Conduct of Life. I just thought what she was doing was amazing. And also because she’s Cuban; here was a Cuban woman who was really writing for the American theater. And I thought, if she can do it, I can certainly try and do the same.

Something that I would certainly say about your work and hers as...