There is a review here about this play being better to see than to read. This should be true of all plays, since thats their purpose. In fact, if you really enjoy reading a play, in the same exact way you enjoy reading a novel- it very likely may not be a good play and should in fact be a novel instead. Having said that, I believe Anna in the Tropics is a great and beautiful play. Reading it I can see how wonderful it would be to see on the stage; watching these very real characters go through their vulnerable journeys; I enjoyed my copy thoroughly.
Take a break of a few minutes from your life and venture into the colorful world of this Florida cigar factory. The story is hardly new. It is a story about love, family, and change. A warm and inviting play that will make you wish that you worked in an old fashioned cigar factory.
I saw this play on Broadway and later directed a staged reading of it in a University setting... its really a lovely piece and grows on you the more you work with it. There are no weak parts -- seven strong characters all have significant roles (Eliades is a cameo, but can be doubled by Palomo). The setting (a cigar factory in 1929 Tampa) is unusual, as is the situation (the lector reads classic literature to the workers as they hand-roll cigars). While some of the script uses phrases that suggest classic Latino "magical realism", the real magic is in the experience of a group of people becoming lost in a piece of literature, as the Russia of Tolstoys "Anna Karenina" lives again in Florida. There is an abundance of romance along with social realism, as the cigar-rolling machines threaten a traditional way of life. This play is best performed in an intimate space -- I recommend Spanish guitar music for the scene changes and comfortable seats for the audience to relax and soak up the language and Caribbean atmosphere of this poetic drama. It works on a lot of different levels and would be great to read in a classroom or use as the basis of a term paper. (Im writing one now.)
