ANNA IN THE TROPICS. To 15 January.
London
ANNA IN THE TROPICS
by Nilo Cruz
Hampstead Theatre To 15 January 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat + 30 Dec, 6 Jan 3pm no performance 24-28 Dec, 3 Jan matinee only 1 Jan
BSL Signed 16 Dec
Captioned 9 Dec
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7722 9301
www.hampsteadtheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 December
Love and desire and hate in a highly-desirable production.Plays about bourgeois British angst have been frequent in Hampstead over the years; ones about love and jealousy among Cuban tobacco-workers in 1920s Florida have not. So when one comes along, thank goodness it's as involving as this 2002 American drama.
They may be rolling tobacco-leaf into well-shaped cigars, but these characters' emotional lives are often seething and suppressed. At the opening, where Liz Ascroft's gauze-surrounded set (glimpses of looming factories, and telegraph poles signalling the modern world around this small community) divides the stage in two, the women look ultra-respectable as they await the new lector, young Marela's incontinence a sign of her youthful excitement and social innocence. Meanwhile, behind a gauze the men bet at cock-fighting, factory owner Santiago drunk and pledging part of his business to brother Cheche in return for gambling funds.
In pre-machine age workrooms the lector kept workers' minds alive by reading novels
and newspapers during shifts; when he arrives, elegant newcomer Juan offers (a remarkably slim-looking) Anna Karenina. His looks and Tolstoy's prose soon stir desire and hate, running parallel to the novel.
It's a piece that gains momentum in Indhu Rubasingham's beautifully-controlled production. There's a sense both of delicacy and passion in setting and playing, with both order and suppressed feelings in the cigar manufactory. Joseph Mydell's Santiago is forceful but disappears when under the influence; as Cheche Peter Polycarpou has the indignation of someone who understands the rough needs of progress but is constantly held back by a traditional community.
Yet, sensible businessman as he is, passions sway him too; Polycarpou achieves a mixture of puzzled vulnerability and rage that shows a good man going wrong. And Lorraine Burroughs shows happy inexperience facing its first buffets, in contrast to the re-awakened sexual joy of Rachael Stirling's Karenina-like Conchita (Eric Loren fine too as her frustrated husband) and the placid love of Diana Quick's Ofelia for the irresponsible Santiago.
Strongly played throughout, this has all the signs of a perfectly-cast production where performances have ignited; any barrier accents or unfamiliar setting might have raised are in practice non-existent. It's a perfect company show.
Marela: Lorraine Burroughs
Juan Julian: Enzo Cilenti
Palomo/Eliades: Eric Loren
Santiago: Joseph Mydell
Cheche: Peter Polycarpou
Ofelia: Diana Quick
Conchita: Rachael Stirling
Cigar Workers: Dempsey Bovell, Vincent Manna, Maria Perez-Muga, Alice da Cunha
Director: Indhu Rubasingham
Designer: Liz Ascroft
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Fergus O'Hare
Composer: Paul Englishby
Choreographer: Rosa Nazira
Dialect coach: Neil Swain
Assistant director: Kelly Wilkinson
2004-12-08 16:05:26