Keeping an Ear to the Pavement: Playwright Reinaldo Povod
by Jeff Church
Just because this is his first play on Broadway doesn't mean 26 year old Reinaldo Pavod is new to the business of writing. He's been doing that since he has sixteen. No, the amazing part is the he is the product of a Lower East Side war zone - drugs, junkies, daily urban combat - and all the time he was writing it down.
Cuba and His Teddy Bear is autobiographical to an extent. For example, Povod's father was a drug dealer and the father-son relationship in the play is based on their own. It's source material. It wasn't, however, a case of producer Joseph Papp receiving an astounding play in the mail that in turn attracted actor Robert DeNiro. Povod was "discovered" by scout, Bill Hart, who went on to direct Cuba.
Hart, several years ago, got a new job and a first assignment from Joe Papp to find a new Hispanic play. (Evidently they hadn't had one since the days of Miguel Pinero and Short Eyes.) Hart saw a flier for Cries and Shouts, a play by Povod, and was intrigued enough by it to bring along Joe Papp, and they have worked together ever since.
When Povod wrote Cuba (in two weeks initially - but he wrote seven "versions" in all), he had DeNiro in mind to play his father. Ironically, the DeNiro film Taxi Driver was shot in and around the building in which Povod lived. "The people around threw bottles," Povod recalls.
DeNiro, without question, is important to the play: "His presence made it so much more," Povod states without sensation. And what about the fuss the press has made over him? (Yes, even People magazine was there for the Broadway opening). "There should be a lot of fuss. I'd be surprised if there wasn't," he says. And it is probably a good thing that Cuba is the only play he has written with a star in mind. That kind of wish becomes difficult to grant on any sort of consistent basis.
One more amazing fact: Povod hasn't seen the play since May. He didn't go to the opening night when it moved to Broadway. "If they had known I wasn't going to go, they probably would have found a way to get me there." As a playwright, Povod will say, "I'm weaning myself." (An understatement.) "I have other ideas and concepts for Cuba, but I have to be away from it to reach them."
Povod loves the cast but feels when he is around that he can "drive them crazy." So he stays away. Maybe the process was enough for him, for he notes, "rehearsing in DeNiro's home, seeing the great moments happen, that satisfied me." Povod talks with clear appreciation of the talents involved. It is Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid) looking very young for his twenty-four years, who portrays the playwright at seventeen. "To do it and to have the credibility to portray the sensitivity and the language…." (Povod's voice trails off and he shakes his head, smiling).
The language and the way people "are" become very important to Povod, who is striving for authenticity on both counts. He does not see many movies and is not a theatergoer himself. He like criminology books - gangsters and mafia
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