Abstract: In Cuba, artists and intellectuals play pivotal roles in the development of national imagery and political consciousness, and also in the retelling of history. This dissertation is an ethnographic portrayal of how the construction of Cuban national identity changed course during the economic and ideological crisis of the 'Special Period' and how state artists and performers mediated the transformation of the national imaginary—acting as liaisons between the cultural needs of local communities and the political demands of official cultural institutions. It examines the process by which artists reinterpret what it means to be 'revolutionary' and 'pure' Cuban after 1990, highlighting the often unheeded perspectives of rural Cuba's central and eastern 'zones of silence.' Research focuses upon professional actors, playwrights and other artists living and working in rural mountain communities of Villa Clara and Guantánamo Provinces. In their theatrical narratives, a synthesis of ideas is created and represented on stage, telling the story back to the people who inspired it, yet also back to official cultural institutions and the socialist State. This dissertation looks at how the creative process is interwoven with political structure and socialist ideology, and questions how national images and definitions of cultural authenticity are manipulated and maintained in popular consciousness during a time of crisis and change. My analysis aims to reveal why the images of the past, the present, and the future campesino (farmer) have been employed to reinvigorate the national Cuban spirit and to defend lo cubano against the deluge of global culture and all that challenges the authority of Fidel Castro's 47 year Revolution. During the Special Period, politicians and state-supported artists traded in the Marxist hombre nuevo for José Martí's hombre sincero, and the rural campesino emerged as one of the new heroes of Cuba's national narrative—a narrative which introduced, albeit under construction—an Hombre Novisimo.