BY ADAM MICHAEL SCHENCK
Literary echoes seem to have passed their high-water mark generations ago. Few quote Shakespeare anymore, and as an atheist I am disappointed that those with “sincerely held religious beliefs” (as Justice Samuel Alito put it in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby) often fail to quote the Bible as well as nonbelievers—although, it’s easy to see the plank in another’s eye and miss the speck in one’s own.
So refreshing, then, to attend the Jungle Theater’s production of “Anna in the Tropics” directed by Larissa Kokernot with a script by Nilo Cruz. Had I known that the “Anna” of the title references none other than Leo Tolstoy’s character Anna Karenina from the 1877 novel of the same name, I would have gone on opening night instead of a week into its run. (The play opened Feb. 11 and runs through March 12.)
While “Anna in the Tropics” lacks the kind of raw ambition of Tolstoy, it finds genuineness in its setting at a Florida cigar factory. Playwright Nilo Cruz creates literary reverberations with the tragic love triangle scenario borrowed from the novel.
The triangle in the play follows the new lector, Juan Julian (portrayed by Juan Rivera Lebron), hired to read to the workers in the factory in the era before radio, and couple Conchita (Nora Montañez) and Palomo (Rich Remedios), whose marriage has lost its passion. Juan Julian’s novel choice: “Anna Karenina.”
They work at Santiago’s (Al Clemente Saks) factory, which is managed by his friend Cheche (Dario Tangelson), who dislikes the lectores because one stole his wife away. When Cheche wants the factory to adopt modern equipment instead of hand-wrapping the cigars, he also of course wants to do away with the outmoded tradition of lectores.
Everyone in the group finds transport in the literature, except for Palomo and Cheche. Their rationalistic “Northern” vision for the factory is opposed by the “Latin” (or Southern) romantic fantasies of the rest of the factory workers. Tradition and technological advancement meet head-on, but factory owner Santiago devises a middle path: a new marketing campaign that utilizes Tolstoy’s novel itself.
For a workplace/family drama, I was wholly satisfied with the cast’s esprit de corps, yet the coda of “Anna in the Tropics” ultimately misses its mark with an unexpected (but not surprising) ending. Theater is pretty simple in the end: there’s either a wedding (comedy) or a hero dies (tragedy). Cruz’s script, and director Kokernot’s interpretation of it, expertly builds one style but finishes with the other.
Yet that is a matter of plot. I have now grown accustomed to expecting much from the Jungle Theater and artistic director Sarah Rasmussen, and “Anna in the Tropics” reaches high and finds much to recommend it. Sarah Bahr’s costumes have stepped right out from late-1920s Tampa, Florida, and so has C. Andrew Mayer’s (sound design) music choices. Barry Browning’s lighting design evokes the sultry Gulf of Mexico summer, as does Andrea Heilman’s set with faux-Venetian blinds in the background.
If “Anna in the Tropics” has a problem, then it’s the problem of literary allusion itself. When one uses a story like “Anna Karenina” to ground and inform one’s own tale, one should not be surprised that the foundational text makes the new one seem incomplete in comparison.
“Anna in the Tropics” plays through March 12 at Jungle Theater’s posh LynLake location at 2951 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls., MN 55408. Find more information at www.jungletheater.com.
Contact Adam at [email protected]. He seeks both praise and blame.
