A Tale of Two Anna's

Some quotes from the soon to be reviewed Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz


Juan Julian: How does one hide behind light?
Marela: Depends on what you are hiding from.
Juan Julian: Perhaps light itself
Marela: Well, there are many kinds of light. The light of fires. The light of stars. The light that reflects off rivers. Light that penetrates through cracks. Then there's the type of light that reflects off the skin. Which one?
Juan Julian: Perhaps the type that reflects off skin.
Marela: That's the most difficult one to escape.

Ofelia: Don't be silly.
Marela: We can always dream.
Ofelia: A yes. But we have to take a yardstick and measure our dreams.
Marela: Then I will need a very long yardstick. The kind that could measure the sky.

Tony Plana, Geoffrey Ricas, Julian Acosta, Onahoua Rodriguez, Adriana Sevan and Karmin Murcela in Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, South Coast Repertory, California, 2003. Photo: Ken Howard. All images courtesy of South Coast Repertory, California.

Conchita: Have you ever heard the voice of someone who's deaf? The voice is crude and ancient, because it has no sense of direction or place, because it doesn't hear itself and it doesn't know if anybody else in the world hears it. Sometimes I want to have a long conversation with you, like this. Like a deaf person. As if I couldn't hear you or myself. But I would just talk and talk, and say everything that comes to my mind, like a shell that shouts with the voice of the sea and it doesn't care if anybody ever hears it. That's how I want to speak to you, and ask you things.

Santiago: Every time I lose, I feel that something has been taken from me... Have I lost you too, Ofelia? Have I lost you?
Ofelia: If you had lost me, I wouldn't be here. If you had lost me, I wouldn't be by your side.

Karmin Murcela (Ofelia), Julian Acosta (Juan Julian), Adriana Sevan (Conchita) and Onahoua Rodriguez (Marela) in Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, South Coast Repertory, California, 2003. Photo: Ken Howard.

Conchita: You are the reader of love stories, and anybody who dedicates his life to reading books believes in rescuing things from oblivion

Juan Julian: You are clear and fresh as water. did anybody ever tell you this?
Marela: No, never
Juan Julian: Then people are blind.

Julian Acosta (Juan Julian) and Adriana Sevan (Conchita) in Nilo Cruz’s Anna and the Tropics, South Coast Repertory, California, 2003. Photo: Ken Howard.