Anna In The Tropics

Sounds of cheering open the play, and Eliades, the operator of the cockfights, collects money from Santiago and Cheché, half-brothers who like to gamble and drink. Santiago bets more recklessly than Cheché, who says, “No, that’s enough,” (9) to Eliades when he comes around to see if Cheché would like to put more money on his “winged beaut[y]” (9). While the men gamble and drink, Santiago’s wife, Ofelia, and their two daughters, Marela and Conchita, eagerly await a ship to arrive from Havana, Cuba at the seaport. They admire a photograph of a man Ofelia is holding, and Marela describes him as “elegant and good-looking” (10), and Ofelia admits to her daughters that she “took some money from the safe to pay for the lector’s trip” (11), revealing that the man they await is “the best lector west of Havana” (11).

As the women anticipate the lector’s arrival and imagine the books he will read to them, the action jumps back to the cockfight, where Santiago is losing all of his money. He borrows money from Cheché, who insists that Santiago give him his word that he will pay him back. Back at the harbor, the ship finally approaches, and Conchita and Ofelia scold Marela because she “wrote the lector’s name on a piece of paper and placed it in a glass of water with brown sugar and cinnamon” (14). Conchita warns Marela about the dangers of magic with a story about a woman who “put a spell on her lover and the man died” (15). At the cockfight, Santiago loses even more money and borrows more from Cheché, promising him that “part of the factory is yours” if Santiago doesn’t pay him back (16) and signing the bottom of Cheché’s shoe as proof. The scene ends when Juan Julian Rios, the Cuban lector, recognizes Ofelia by “[t]he gardenia in your hat” (17), and Marela is so overwhelmed by the experience of meeting Juan Julian that she urinates on herself.

At the start of Scene 2, Juan Julian arrives at the cigar factory to be greeted by Cheché, who is not expecting him, and tells him that “we’re not hiring” (19). Ofelia interrupts and explains that she has hired the lector, so Cheché leaves without protest. Marela and Conchita join Ofelia in welcoming Juan Julian. Marela explains Cheché’s role at the factory to the lector, who believes that his “presence offends him” (20). When Ofelia explains that Cheché’s bad attitude is the result of having “a little too much power” (21), Conchita and Marela add that Cheché has an overdramatic side and that his wife left him for a lector, so his dislike of Juan Julian cannot be personal. Cheché approaches Ofelia with his shoe to explain to her Santiago’s debt to him, and Ofelia mocks him: “So are you giving me this shoe so I can throw it at him and break his head?” (24). She dismisses Cheché’s attempt to collect on Santiago’s promise by telling Cheché to “go to a shoemaker and get your shoes mended” (25).

The third scene begins with Juan Julian reading from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina “with passion and fervor” (25). Conchita, Marela and Ofelia are rather taken with his style, “because it’s like hearing a bird sing when he reads” (26). When Cheché criticizes the lector to Palomo within earshot of the women, Ofelia defends his role, explaining that “[s]ome of us cigar workers might not be able to read or write, but we can recite lines from Don Quixote or Jane Eyre” (27). Palomo and Cheché exit the scene, and Conchita laments Anna Karenina’s difficult life, suggesting that she, Conchita, can relate to some of the suffering Anna Karenina endures. Palomo comes back, and when Ofelia and Marela leave, Conchita and Palomo talk about the plot line of the book, which leads Palomo to express his money worries and Conchita to confront Palomo about his infidelity: “You are the one who has a secret love, not me” (33). Palomo echoes Cheché when he blames the novel for their problems, saying “[t]his book will be the end of us,” (35) when he learns that Conchita is inspired by Anna Karenina’s extramarital affair and wants to have one of her own.

In Scene 4, Santiago and Ofelia argue at home, using Marela as their go-between until Marela leaves the house in utter frustration. Once Santiago and Ofelia are on their own, their argument actually becomes productive, and Santiago admits he “shouldn’t drink” (39). He confesses to Ofelia that he has “acted like a fool” (39) and that when he gambles and loses, he “feel[s] that something has been taken from [him]. Something bigger than money…[his] dignity” (41). Santiago worries out loud that he has lost his wife as well, but Ofelia reassures him: “If you had lost me, I wouldn’t be by your side” (41).

At the factory, at the beginning of Scene 5, Juan Julian, Marela and Conchita talk about nature, Tolstoy and God, and Juan Julian claims that “Tolstoy understands humanity like no other writer does” (42). Marela leaves Conchita and Juan Julian alone, and Conchita asks Juan Julian how he became a lector. He explains that at one point, his father “owed a lot of money to a creditor and we had to close ourselves up in our house and hide for a while” (42), telling all the neighbors that they needed to travel for his mother’s health to save face. During these two months, Juan Julian’s mother read out loud to everyone, and that’s when he “became a listener” (43), a quality Conchita clearly admires in him. Conchita takes a turn talking about herself, sharing with Juan Julian a story about a boy she knew, whom she gave a braid of her own hair for him to bury according to a Cuban tradition in which “most women cut their hair once a year on the 2nd of February…for the feast of Saint Candelaria” (43). When the boy refused to bury her hair, Conchita “put him to shame” (43) and buried the hair herself. Now, Santiago buries her hair for her, and Juan Julian wonders why her husband does not perform this gallantry for Conchita. She lightens the mood of their conversation by claiming she will cut her hair off in order to end the ritual, but Juan Julian offers to be the man to bury her hair. This banter leads to a kiss and the start of their affair.