American Players Theatre: Anna in the Tropics

Allie Bugajski, Allie and the After Party

The Temperatures Are Rising

Three women wait out on the dock while a ship arrives, fanning themselves from the heat and their excitement. Three men behind them stand ready to place their bets as the pregonero calls out the next fight. They switch back and forth between scenes as the women wait to greet their incoming lector and the men gamble at a cockfight. The men argue over money. The women discuss what they hope the new stories will be. Two very different beginnings, but both ultimately lead to the family cigar factory. They join and bring the new lector into the factory who will read to them as they each sit at their stations and roll cigars by hand.

We feel the humid air of the factory combined with the heavy and intentional air of the actors as they deliver their lines. The lector sits above the factory floor on his pulpit, book in hand, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief. As the sun fades over The Hill and decorative lanterns are brought out to hang, we feel the warm, dusky glow of a summer party. There are moments where it seems like our actors are reciting poetry to us as they describe their feelings. When they light a cigar, it’s a poetic ritual. One passes a cigar to someone who presents it to the next. They each close their eyes and experience the moment in their own ways. Inhaling to taste the multi-layered flavors of the tobacco. Exhaling to release the smoke and be enveloped in its warm embrace. Anna in the Tropics creates an atmosphere that draws us in to their changing world and how one incoming person can change everything.

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