After choking on its last stage production, TheatreWorks comes roaring back into fine form with Nilo Cruz’s 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, “Anna in the Tropics,” which opened in Palo Alto last weekend for a short, one-month run.
Cruz’s richly layered script, about a suave young lector who is hired to read stories to Cuban-American workers at a Florida cigar factory, is moving in its own right. When brought to the stage, however, it is transformed into something absolutely spellbinding.
“Anna” has a slow start, but after wading through the first few scenes, what begins to emerge is an intricate portrait of family rifts, love affairs and secrets that will keep you suspended until the show’s startling conclusion.
Juan Julian (David DeSantos), as one character puts it, is “a reader of love stories,” hired to break up the mundane days of 1920s cigar factory workers with a bit of Tolstoy. Reading from the pages of “Anna Karenina,” Juan Julian transports his audience into a seductive world of hidden dreams and fiery passions.
Dressed in a handsome white suit, the lector is no doubt the protagonist here; interestingly, though, we don’t quite catch onto this fact until the show is more than half way over. At first, it would appear that Juan Julian is helping to stir up some of the problems that surface throughout the show. We come to realize, however, that he is actually the tie that binds, mending broken unions and giving others reason to hope.
While Juan Julian has the women in the factory swooning over him, he inflames a jealous rage in some of the male employees, who try to get him fired. The story may sound simple, but it’s not really what drives the action. Instead, it is the complex relationships the characters have with each other that make “Anna” so beautiful.
Unfortunately, to say anything else about the plot would give too much away.
DeSantos, with his scruffy mustache and greasy hair, doesn’t quite fit the bill for “hunk,” but he quickly wins us over when he starts reciting Tolstoy. There is something rather electrifying about his performance, which only intensifies when he finds himself shirtless with one very lucky lady onstage.
Veteran TheatreWorks director Amy Gonzales (“The Legacy Codes,” “Moon Over Buffalo”) doesn’t seem to worry so much about detail, realizing that the magic of this show is in the dialogue and the way it’s delivered. She doesn’t have her actors do anything that is not imperative to the flow of the story. It’s an effective choice that brings us closer to the action and makes us feel as if we have a stake in what happens to these characters.
Some of the actors have a hard time holding onto their dialects, but for the most part, the show is wonderfully cast, from the doe-eyed charm of Apollo Dukakis, who plays cigar factory owner Santiago, to the feisty Alma Martinez, who plays his wife, Ofelia.
Vilma Silva, playing the couple’s eldest daughter Conchita, and George Castillo as her machismo husband Palomo, are also nicely matched, making us empathize with them one moment only to frustrate us the next.
But the sweetest member of this cigar-rolling clan comes in the form of Isabelle Ortega as Marela, Santiago and Ofelia’s youngest daughter. Ortega starts off a giggly schoolgirl only to end up a broken woman, and her transformation is both lovely and sad.
Duke Durfee’s wood-paneled set gives us the sense of location without overshadowing the action. Fumiko Bielefefeldt’s costumes, on the other hand, should have their own credit in the playbill. Her gorgeous dresses and suits add the final dazzling touches to this smoldering production.
INFORMATION:
What: TheatreWorks presents “Anna in the Tropics” by Nilo Cruz
Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
When: Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. (no performance on March 28); Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (8 p.m. only on April 1); Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (2 p.m. only on April 2). Show closes April 2.
Cost: $21-$51
Call: (650) 903-6000 or visit www.theatreworks.org
