The South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC) opens its doors for the world premiere of “The Cuban Spring,” a new play by Miami-based playwright Vanessa Garcia.

Vanessa Garcia.

A generational rift has emerged within the the Cuban exile community. The rigid views of the past, which to many are not rigid but a logical reaction to history, clash in “The Cuban Spring.” This family drama reveals one woman’s crisis of identity born out of lies and secrets, but it also reveals the subtle and not-so-subtle transformation in Cuban culture.

“This play comes from a double drive. The first is the drive all of my plays (and perhaps all of my writing) come from: Love. An exploration of what Love means, what it does to us, how it plays out inside us, how it changes us, and how it makes its way into our relationships, our personal universe, and out onto the broader world,” says playwright Vanessa Garcia. “The second impulse here is a drive towards Cuba – my cultural home, though a place I’ve never been to.”

“The Cuban Spring” is also about barriers symbolized most notably by America’s embargo of the island. This embargo has resulted in a ‘familial embargo,’ a crisis of forced separation and dislocation.

“For years, I’ve been fascinated, and tormented (yes, that’s a better word), by my seeming inability to physically access the island of Cuba….the same family that causes the Familial Embargo (which, I must say, is softening as we speak), is also the family that creates the drive towards the island through cultural upbringing and nostalgia,” says Garcia. “It’s complicated. ‘So complicated,’ to quote the character of Miguel in the play, and to bring us full circle, ‘it’s like love.'”

“The Cuban Spring” runs Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at the SMDCAC, 10950 SW 211 St., Cutler Bay. There will be no 5:30 p.m. performance on October 12 and 31. Advance tickets are $26, and same-day tickets are $31. To purchase tickets, call the SMDCAC box office at 786-573-5300 or visit smdcac.org.