On December 15, 16, and 17, the College Theater Practicum class performed “Anna in the Tropics,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama written by Nilo Cruz. Spanish music greeted the audience members as they filed through the auditorium’s double doors into 1929 Tampa, Florida.

The room quieted as theater teacher and director Jenny Tibbles-Jordan stepped into the spotlight shining on the drawn stage curtains. She explained that lectors were storytellers who read aloud from novels and newspapers to divert and educate factory workers.
Max Botstein, dapper in a jacket and Panama hat, played the lector in question, Juan Julian.

Newly employed at Santiago (Denzil Davis) and Ofelia’s (Maya Osborne) cigar factory, he decides to introduce the workers to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The story (along with Julian’s magnificently moussed hair) arouses the imaginations and desires of Ofelia and Santiago’s two daughters, played by Naomi Boyce and Sonia Feigelson.

Feigelson’s acting was strong as usual, despite a jarring switch midway through the performance. Her character, Marela, who began as a vivacious little girl, transformed into a coquettish young woman enthralled by the factory lector.

Year II Alessio Franko played Cheche, the brother who is desperate to modernize the factory and get rid of the lector, whose stories and antics remind him of his adulterous wife. Franko was expressive and extremely convincing. He left BHSEC’s Alessio backstage and skillfully played a dual role; Cheche sometimes serves as a faceless villain, but he is also a bitter and neglected, but passionate man. As Conchita (Naomi Boyce) says to her husband (Alex Haviland), Franko did “as actors do…They stop playing themselves and they give in.”

Although the plot is beautifully entwined with the story of Anna Karenina, and explores the diversity of love, some of the themes in the play were not fully developed. Although Cheche fought to mechanize the factory (and thus make the lector obsolete), it was unclear how modernity informed the rest of the characters.

The costumes (Loren Shaw), lighting (Derek Wright and Jonathan Mallozzi), and set (Gian Marco Lo Forte) were all fantastic. Two folding screens and a string of paper lanterns set the mood, transforming the dusty stage into small town Ybor City. It was clear how much time and energy went into every aspect of the production.

“Anna in the Tropics” was meticulously rehearsed. The characters were well developed, and the actors related to each other believably. The blocking and the transitions between scenes were flawless. Bravo, Theater Practicum!