The Paris Husband
A love affair torn between desire, domination, and diplomacy…
In the ashes of war, desire sparks.
The year is 1947. In the glittering salons and smoky jazz clubs of postwar Paris, Doris Duke — a white American tobacco heiress — finds herself swept into a whirlwind romance with Porfirio Rubirosa, the charismatic Dominican ambassador to France. Glamour and longing bind them. But power divides them.
As they navigate a relationship marked by racial hierarchy, obscene wealth, and the scars of empire, the lovers must confront the truths that lie between them: some borders aren’t just national — they’re structural, and painfully enduring.
When whispers emerge that Rubirosa may be funneling Doris’s fortune to his boss — the U.S.-backed Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo — the romance is no longer just tabloid fodder. It’s a diplomatic crisis.
The Paris Husband is a historical love story tangled in the web of colonialism, surveillance, and betrayal — asking what remains when passion meets power, and can love survive when respect is no longer on the table.
WORLD PREMIERE
Premiere
June 17, 2024 at The Hudson Theater, New York City.
Festival
Presented as part of the New York Theater Festival.
Production Company
Autumn Rose Creations, LLC
Playwright
Genara Cristina Necos.
Run
Three-night engagement on June 17th, 21st, and the 23rd; On two nights the play was performed to a sold-out audience.
Paul Dunn, audience member
“The complex relationships between characters create genuine dramatic tension that draws you in completely. I found myself invested in their stories and eager to see how their connections would evolve.”
Len, audience member
“The Paris Husband delivers unexpected narrative turns that kept me engaged throughout, while the chemistry between Doris and Rubi feels authentic and emotionally compelling.”
CREATIVE TEAM
Genara Cristina Necos, Playwright
Julia Genoveva Bernal, Director
Katherine Barfield, Stage Manager
Stacey Adams, Line Producer
John Dorado, Videographer
Gus Ferrari, Lighting Designer
Special thanks to Chui Man Lee (Graphic Designer), Alan Baxter, Guy Masterson, Audrey Rosenberg & Stacy Bobbitt.
FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
I never planned to write a play. In fact, I had never written one before The Paris Husband. But this story had been quietly following me for over a decade. It began in 2013, on a trip to Newport, Rhode Island. Doris Duke was everywhere — in the historical plaques, the local lore, and, most memorably, in the Gilded Age mansion she inherited and painstakingly restored. I became captivated by her legacy, both glamorous and fraught, her investment in African-American cultural production, and began an informal research journey that would take me far beyond Newport’s shores.
That’s when I stumbled upon her brief and unlikely marriage to Porfirio Rubirosa — the Dominican ambassador to France and a figure as outsized in Dominican lore as any fictional hero. Their union, which lasted only a year, struck me as both improbable and inevitable. What could have drawn these two people — separated by race, wealth, power, and nationality — into each other’s orbit? And what does love look like when it’s shaped by deep inequality and the absence of respect?
I turned my attention away from the story for years. But when my mother passed away in 2018, something shifted. Theater had always been one of her greatest joys — a space of wonder, laughter, and shared breath. I often gifted her trips to Broadway shows. After her death, I realized I wanted to give her something lasting. Something of my own. That’s when I returned to this story — not as an academic curiosity, but as a play. The Paris Husband is my offering — a meditation on love, power, and the fragile gamble of intimacy — and, most of all, a love letter to my mother.
— Genara Cristina Necos