Ricardo Barber, the Cuban-born stage actor who dedicated the entirety of his career in America as a core member of the award-winning Off-Broadway theatre company Repertorio Espa帽ol, died December 17 at the age of 81. Repertorio Espa帽ol, which served as his artistic home for three decades, announced news of his death.
Born in Placetas, Santa Clara, Cuba, Barber studied acting at Universidad de La Habana, where he graduated in 1961鈥攐nly three years after the Communist revolution that placed Fidel Castro in power. In the years that followed Barber helped form the National Dramatic Group, and later performed with the theatre group La Rueda and Teatro Estudio. His career was abruptly cut short in 1968 when he was imprisoned in one of Castro鈥檚 agricultural labor camps, which targeted homosexuals and others deemed undesirable.
Following the abolition of the labor camps, Barber left Cuba for Spain in the mid 1970s to work with Alonso Paso鈥檚 Compa帽铆a de Comedias. He arrived in New York in 1981, and swiftly found work as a member of the Off-Broadway company Repertorio Espa帽ol, where he remained until 2012. He became a beloved fixture who dedicated the entirety of his 30-year career in the U.S. to the repertory company that produced the work of Spanish playwrights, such as Calder贸n, Lope de Vega, and Garc铆a Lorca, while also embracing the work of Latin American writers and writers who captured the Latin experience in the U.S.
Barber鈥檚 numerous stage appearances included the critically acclaimed Spanish-language premiere of Nilo Cruz鈥檚 Pulitzer-winning Anna in the Tropics plus Gloria Gonz谩lez鈥檚 Caf茅 Con Leche and Carmen Rivera鈥檚 La Gringa; he also starred as Don Quijote in El Quijote. He returned to Cuba in 1998 along with Ana Margarita Mart铆nez-Casado as the first actors in exile to return to their homeland to perform Eduardo Machado鈥檚 Broken Eggs.
Barber retired from acting in 2014. He is survived by his sisters Rosa and Violeta Barber, his nephew Luis Mallo, his wife Ana Nery Fragoso, and his grandnephew Sergio Mallo.
