Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz

Anna in the Tropics. The mystery hidden in Tolstoy’s novel,

by Nilo Cruz

The QCC Theatre, on Friday March 16th, 2018, performed Anna in the Tropics, a two-act play by Nilo Cruz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2003. The spectacle is a juxtaposition of a true story which took place in Tampa, Florida in 1929, where Santiago and his spouse Ofelia owned a cigar factory. The play is based on readings from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Gambling, literature, love, infidelity, tradition, modernization, and revenge are the major themes of the play. As the story is told in the play, one of the traditions of the cubans cigar factories is that the workers hire a lector or a reader at their own expense to read, to inform and to entertain them while they are rolling cigars. The play was incredible for it reminds what was long forgotten about cuban cultural exodus.

The play is divided in two acts. The opening scene captivates the attention of the audience by introducing eight characters in two different stages of the play with humorous tones. On one side Santiago (the owner of the factory, in his fifties) is losing against his half-Cuban half-brother Chester (also known as Cheche, in his early forties) over a cockfight. On the other hand, Ofelia (Santiago’s wife) and their two daughters Marela (single) and Conchita (Palomo’s wife) are standing at the dock and are very excited to welcome the new lector Juan Julian. The characters are well-dressed. Chester, a figure of change and modernization, wants to replace the hand-workers with machines, and to suppress the position the lector in the cigar industry. But he is constantly opposed by the other workers who want to keep the tradition due to the fact that the lector is paid at the workers expense. The reason why Chester doesn’t like lectors is because his wife left him with the previous lector. Juan Julian’s readings become the objects of discussion among the workers, and each one of them interprets its passages according to his or her understanding. Marela who acted like a child in the beginning acquires maturity. Palomo, the unfaithful husband in the first act, turns to a faithful spouse in the second act. Santiago and Ofelia find themselves in love of each other and are now more united than before. Chester only doesn’t change, he ends up by shooting Juan Julian. Palomo finishes the reading of Anna Karenina in order to accomplish the lector’s job.

The play opens with a scene showing Santiago and his brother Chester gambling over a cockfight. Chester wants to take over the cigar factory, so he lends money to Santiago and the latter will pay him back otherwise, Chester will own the half of the cigar factory. Literature is also remarkable. Since the workers don’t have any formal education, they learn from the readings of Anna Karenina. Infidelity and love are also important in the play. Conchita is in love with Palomo, but Palomo was cheating on her by dating other women. At one point, Conchita has been unfaithful too because she had an affair with Juan Julian. Tradition and modernization are in perpetual challenge as well. The Cuban women used to cut their hair and planted it at the feet of a tree. A cigar factory had a lector ar reader who read for the workers. Chéché, constantly, tries to convince Santiago and the workers to accept machinery in order to suppress the position of the lector, but he is opposed. Palomo decides to challenge

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