8/24/2024 ANNA IN THE TROPICS Merely Players Presents
HAPPY FAMILIES
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Everything at Santiago’s Cigar Factory is topsy-turvy. Santiago’s elder daughter, Conchita, has found out that her husband, Paloma, has been having an affair. Santiago’s half-brother, Cheché, lost his wife when she ran off with the factory’s Lector, a man engaged to read to the workers who labor in the hot Ybor City (Florida) warehouse where the cigars are constructed and refined. Santiago’s wife, Ofelia, has an iron grip on the finances that Santiago needs to feed his gambling hobby, and has taken it upon herself to engage the services of a new Lector. Santiago’s younger daughter, Marela, is starry-eyed at the sound of well-read words, at the characters in faraway lands that populate the stories the Lector brings to the factory.
And the new Lector, Juan Julian, is handsome and intelligent and enraptures the women (as well as some of the men). He has chosen Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina as his reading of choice, for what better way to pass the busy working-class hours under the Florida sun than with hearing of the loves and jealousies of Russian aristocrats in the Moscow winter? As Ofelia says, “There is nothing like reading a winter book in the middle of summer. It’s like having a fan or an icebox by your side to relieve the heat and the caloric nights.”
This is the set-up for Nilo Cruz’s 2002 Pulitzer-Prize winning play, Anna in the Tropics, now being given a bilingual production at Doraville’s Merely Players Presents. (*) I first read this play last month and provided a “thumbnail” reaction to it in my last “From the Bookshelf” column (see here) and have been looking forward to seeing it live on stage ever since. This is a brilliantly constructed play that borrows both plot and theme from Tolstoy and layers them over the immigrant experience of Cuban ex-patriates in 1929 Florida (Ybor City is a small town outside Tampa, which at the time was not the large tourist and sports-fan Mecca it is today.) The Depression has yet to reach these characters, (though the script hints that the hey-day of growing rich from the production of cigars is coming to a cigarette-smoke-filled fade-out).
At Santiago’s, cigars are made in the Cuban tradition, a process passed down from the Taino Indians who made cigar smoke part of their religious ritual. They are hand-rolled with the finest tobaccos imported from “the island.” But Cheché, has been given a larger-than-deserved share in the factory to cover Santiago’s gambling debts, wants to bring the factory into the 20th Century by installing rolling machines, which would, of necessity, cut the staff as well as eliminate the “need” for a Lector. Understandably, he is a lone voice that soon gets drowned out, a lone voice embittered by a faithless wife, an unrequited attraction to his half-niece Marela, and an overwhelming hatred of Juan Julian and his book, a book that ironically offers the “dueling lesson” that every jealous “man of honor” requires, a lesson that just may come back to pay a tragic dividend.
From an economic standpoint, Cheché Is not wrong. Most American companies soon abandoned the traditional methods, which is why Cuban cigars (made traditionally) eventually become the rare and prized epitome that they remain to this day.
Cruz’s genius is that in two fast-paced acts, he creates an unhappy family every bit as nuanced and complex as Tolstoy’s Karenins and Vronskys and Levins. As an example, an early scene in Santiago and Ofelia’s apartment has them angrily “not speaking to each other,” requiring Marela to act as “go-between translator.” But their basic and long-held love cannot be silenced and by scene’s end, they are embracing and planning, even as they roll their eyes at the aggravations they cause each other. It’s a beautifully written scene with dialogue that sings even as it excuses and explains and exalts.
Conchita and Paloma have a similar scene in which their separate infidelities (perhaps inspired by the characters in Anna Karenina) are freely acknowledged but laced with jealous overtones and still-deep affection and attraction It ends with playful role-playing even as it acknowledges that this marriage is (probably) doomed to remain unhappy. For now. Maybe.
Yes, there are acts of macho violence, a few wounds that cannot possible be healed with flowery prose or imagined troika rides. But there is also frequent laughter, moments of true affection, and immense joy, a party to launch a new cigar line (with Marela posing as Anna Karenina for the packaging), a few illicit wallows in prohibition-era rum, and even hints that Santiago may be moving beyond his gambling addiction.
To create a (belabored) cigar metaphor, the “Filler” of this play is the drama of Santiago’s family; it’s “Wrapper” is the poetic dialog, its complex characters and its full emotional spectrum; and its “Binder” is its love of literature, of language, of imagination. There’s even a “Foot” and a “Cap” – a start (“Foot”) with two juxtaposed scenes set at a chicken fight and at a pier that skillfully introduces us to this family and an ending (“Cap”) that hints that this uniquely unhappy family is almost to the point of a more common happiness.
And it was beautifully performed by a cast who (sometimes) sounded a bit uncomfortable with English, but who were more than comfortable with the language of family and emotion. They all got under my skin and made this story epic in its effect.
Kristian Rodriguez and Aniria Turney bring to Santiago and Ofelia a beautifully realized portrait of a long and successful marriage (and business partnership). They are, in fact, what we could imagine Levin and Kitty eventually becoming after all the Sturm und Drang of Anna’s life has passed.
Amalia González-Cidre and Sebastian Wong are Conchita and Paloma (Mr. Wong also doubles as Eliades, master of the chicken fight in the first scene). They are still playful even in their bitterness and give us hope that things probably won’t be as unhappy for them as they seem to think. Nicolas Teixeira Gonzalez brings to Juan Julian a suave urbanity that is attractive to all the women as it is to us. This role (Vronsky if you will) can easily became smarmy and “lounge lizardy” but Mr. Gonzalez keeps him charming and likeable. Mostly. I mean, let’s be honest, he does seduce another man’s wife and coldly ignores the younger Marela’s obvious infatuation, leaving her vulnerable to {deleted by the spoiler police).
Cesar Pichardo brings a nice ambivalence to Cheché, making him seem charming and generous (at first). Mr. Pichardo very skillfully adds in Cheché’s more negative aspects, his bitterness, his calculated planning, his cruelty, his blind hatred. It is a complex portrait that works on every level. As Marela, Sabrina Diamond brings an enthusiasm and vivacity that truly underscores the cruelty of how she is eventually treated.
Co-Directors Rose Bianco and Carla Scruggs have skillfully wrangled their cast (at least in this English-language version) keeping the pace brisk, the nuance in full view, the melody of the language intact. Set Designer Sophie Im has created a photo-realistic warehouse set (you can almost smell the years of cigar smoke permeating the wood joints and panels) that easily offers isolation areas for other scenes. And Light Designer Kurt Hansen skillfully isolates outside-the warehouse scenes even as he creates a warehouse picture that accurately reflects both time of day and mood.
Anna in the Tropics brilliantly embodies Tolstoy’s opening line of Anna Karenina, even as it skewers Tolstoy’s obsessions with class and adultery, even as it wallows in the emotional richness of Anna and Vronsky and Karenin and Levin and Kitty. It is a brilliantly staged, beautifully performed slice of American history that opens a window into the Cuban immigrant culture. And, not to be snide, it makes me appreciate cigars a little bit more. Especially if I don’t have to actually smoke or smell them.
-- Brad Rudy (BKRudy@aol.com #MerelyPlayersPresents #AnnaInTheTropics)
https://www.merelyplayerspresents.com/anna
(*) In English through August 24, En Español Septiembre 13 - 15