Cuban Cigars and Russian Czars

"I can only respond as an artist, because that's what I am"

- Nilo Cruz

The 2003 Pulitzer Prize Winner: Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz

I am in this wonderful Theatre class where we analyze the shooty out of a play every week, and I made the mistake of thinking, "I will do [Anna] because I read it over the summer, and then I can blog about it, because I will already have some coherent thoughts!!!!"

Yeah. Now I don't really want to talk about it anymore, but I will muster every ounce of literary UMPH in me to write this and make it sound nice. Ready for this?

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The play takes place in the summer of 1929 in a small, family run cigar factory on the coast of Florida. In those times, factory owners would hire men, or lectores, to educate and entertain the workers by reading them works of classic literature. The new lector, Juan Julian, decides to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy in the scorching summer heat. The characters are inspired and moved by Anna, her lover Vronsky, and the devotion of Levin to Kitty. Their lives begin to echo Tolstoy's as they struggle to understand love in its many forms.

Photo Courtesy of Capitalrep.org

First things first, Anna is a lovely play. It is just exquisite. The plot, tone, characters and dialogue are solid. (Obviously you cannot win a Pulitzer Prize without a pretty tight little play) It is just a good read... or so I thought.

Mr. Cruz was clearly not satisfied with a tight little play. For my script analysis I started reading interviews with the Cruz, and in them he discusses the major theme of the play that I somehow completely missed. I understand the importance of culture and heritage for the Cuban immigrants, the helplessness they feel as Industrialism and the rise of machines steal a way of life and tradition from the lectores, and the delicate balance of power for a family in a business environment.

What I somehow missed, is the very concept that takes this play from a good read to a provocative Pulitzer Prize winner. It lies within Palomo; the forty-something husband of the daughter of the factory owner. In Anna in the Tropics it is Palomo who undergoes the most prominent change. He imposes his physical and emotional will over his wife, Conchita and takes a mistress to prove his masculinity. In reality, he is complete only when he surrenders to Conchita and asks her to show him what it means to love without his masculine identity. It is a play about finding yourself and your spouse through another's body and another's words, and ultimately the depth of physical and emotional understanding it brings.

Nilo Cruz, by Jennifer Reiley

"I find that writing is all about going into this female landscape: it’s about surrendering and letting the story take its own form and not manipulating it. Male sexuality is often a form of manipulation instead of a dance, but sexuality should be a dance, I think, between two people. This play allows for that dance."

- Nilo Cruz to Emily Mann from BOMB Magazine
October 8, 2003

The language is beautiful, the blend of Russia and Cuba is seamless, and the characters emerge through clouds of smoke to create the most complete image of love I have encountered in a play.

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