There are many forms of enchantment and transformation in Nilo Cruz’s richly satisfying, Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Ana en el Tropico (“Anna in the Tropics”), at GALA Hispanic Theatre. Cruz creates a unique setting for his play, a cigar factory in Tampa, Florida in 1929, where cigars are still rolled by hand.
In the first scene, workers at the factory await the arrival of a new “lector,” or reader, who has been hired to read to them as they roll cigars, a custom transferred to Florida from Cuba where all the workers come from, and where lectors were used to educate and entertain the employees as they worked.
The lector in “Ana,” Juan Julian (Oscar Ceville) is young and handsome and has chosen to read Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” because of his admiration for Tolstoy. As he reads the intense tale of the woman who chose love over duty, the sultry Tampa heat collides with images from Tolstoy’s icy but passionate world, and the lives of the factory workers are deeply altered.
| Onstage |
| ‘Ana en el Tropico’ |
| Where: GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th St. NW |
| When: Through March 4 |
| Info: $34 to $38; 800-494-8497; galatheatre.org; in Spanish with English surtitles |
The actors at GALA are superbly fit to handle Cruz’s roles. At the beginning of the play, Santiago (Hugo Medrano), the factory owner, is lost in a haze of alcohol and gambling. His wife, Ofelia (Marian Licha) is frustrated and has given up on her husband. They have a 22-year-old daughter, Marela (Monalisa Arias) and a bitter 32-year-old daughter, Conchita (Veronica del Cerro) who knows her husband, Palomo (Jose Guzman) is having an affair.
As Julian reads the lyrical prose of “Anna Karenina,” Marela begins to have romantic fantasies about Moscow’s aristocratic class. Conchita begins to see herself as a new Anna and finds fulfillment in her own romantic affair. Their mother remains strong as she runs the factory and in the end, Santiago sobers up and comes back to life as a loving husband.
There are anti-romantic events in the play, too, to be sure. But they are encompassed by the presence of Tolstoy, whose words are read at length, and of the community, which gains a poetic unity through the play.
Sensitively directed by Jose Carrasquillo, this “Ana” is a unconventional take on human needs and desires and a not-so-subtle tribute to the transformational power of great literature.
