Nilo Cruz "A Bicycle Country" is timely

Last Friday, my husband and I were treated to Nilo Cruz’s play, “A Bicycle Country,” directed by Marina Pareja at FIU’s Alternative Theater Festival. The excellent and intimate cast of three recreated a few months during Cuba’s “Special Period” in the late 90s, as they prepared to leave Cuba on a raft. At the same time these actors were captivating the audience, simulating their struggle aboard a raft on stage, a Cuban man was floating on a Styrofoam raft in the Florida Straits, dehydrated after three weeks at sea (see A. Chardy’s articles in the Miami Herald, July 13-14, 2010). We may have thought the balsero crisis was over, but the real crisis in Cuba continues.