Critique Of Anna In The Tropics

Jessie Reed THTR 351 Light Design Section 1 Chris Eicher 6/5/09 Critique of Anna in the Tropics This is a critique of Anna in the Tropics preformed on May 21 thru 23 and May 28 thru 31 in the Dore Theater at California State University of Bakersfield. In it I will describe my opinion on the performance of actors, the play itself, and the lighting design. I will be concentration mostly on the lighting of the play. What I liked and disliked about the lights, the visibility, selective focus, mood, and plasticity. With each of these I will discuss their effect on the theme, genre, color, climax, distribution, and types of movement used to create the right effect. Anna in the Tropics is about a Cuban family that has moved their cigar company to a small town in Florida. Santiago (played by Michael Mejia) runs the factory with his wife Ofelia (Alyssa S. Wiley). They have two daughters who were raised to roll cigars by hand in the traditional Cuban way. The youngest daughter of Santiago and Ofelia named Marela (Toni Lynne), dreams of a more adventurous life outside of the cigar factory. Her fantasies are aided by the influence of the Juan Julian (Tyree Boyd-Pates), the new lector, who reads the tale of Anna Karenina of Russia to the workers while they roll cigars. Meanwhile the eldest daughter, Conchita (Jess Boles), finds herself trapped in a loveless marriage with her husband Palomo (Danvir Singh Grewal), a fellow cigar roller. She is also influenced by the story of Anna, and decides to follow after her life and take on a lover, which happens to be the lector himself. In the midst of this, Santiago’s half-brother, Cheche (Justin Thompson), is pushing for modernization of the factory by switching to machines. Cheche is, however, haunted by his past quarrels with a

previous lector that ran away with his wife; this adds to the conflict of replacing workers and the lector with machines. The main theme of Anna in the Tropics is violence versus reason. In other words, it is whether the characters resolve to solve their problems using violence or reason. In my opinion all of the actors in this play were very effective and played their parts well. I was able to determine the theme and who was using violence or reason to do things. The most important element of lighting the stage for the play is visibility. This was an ever-present factor throughout Anna in the Tropics. I did not detect any scene where the main focus was not seen. Visibility, in my opinion, is an important element in determining the theme of the play, violence versus reason. Due to the well-lit stage and the wonderful performance of the actors the audience was able to see and determine who was trying to resolve the many different conflicts in the factory with either reason or violence. For example, I was able to tell that Cheche wanted to use force to and power to get what he wanted while Santiago tried to reason with him by getting the opinion of all the workers to back him up. The genre of the play was a tragedy with a bit of comedy to balance it out. Due to this type of play it was necessary to have bright lights during the comedic parts and more dim lights during the dramatic parts, however, all of the main actors were visible in the dimmer lights. During the climax, when Cheche shoots Juan, the actors were completely visible, I had no trouble seeing what was going on, and because of the fact I could see the scene I was able to know the climax. The distribution of lights made everything perceptible. The instruments were spread out well, which created an even layer of light on the stage that made the selective focus easy for the audience to concentrate on. The emphasis or selective focus is where the audience is supposed to be looking during each scene. To enhance the theme of the play the selective focus was on the two different

standpoints on how problems were to be settled. One example of this was when Cheche raped Marela. She ignores his insinuations towards her so he forces himself upon her. In this scene there is a definite emphasis on the two characters. During many of these scenes the lights put a dramatic emphasis on the main characters to enhance the genre of the play. For example, when Conchita and Juan were in the factory, after one of their “love affairs”, some of the lights appear on Palomo at the top of the stairs. The audience sees that he is angry at the way things are playing out and that Conchita knows that he is watching. She purposefully provokes him to show her rebellion against their loveless marriage. At the climax the focus is on Cheche and Juan. When Cheche walks into the room all eyes are on him, then he pulls out a gun and shoots the lector, surprising the entire audience. Between cues the focus may move from one character or area to another. An example of this is the very beginning scene when it shows Santiago and his workers at the cockfight, the switches to Ofelia and her daughters waiting for the arrival of Juan at the dock. In this scene there is also a change in color to represent where the action is taking place. I did not quite like the choice of color for the mother and daughters at the sea. I would have rather preferred a softer more inviting blue like a cool sea breeze instead of the greenish peacock blue used in the scene. That color gave me a more sickening feeling instead of the felling of waiting in anticipation. The different colors on the main characters of a scene also give the play a sense of the mood. The general mood of Anna in the Tropics was mostly dark and dramatic, with some romance and humor tied into it. You cant quite synthesize literal darkness with the lights due to the visibility factor, but the lighting itself does create a separate mood that should go along with the mood and theme of the play, such as the feeling of intensity. The theme creates an intense and dark mood. For example after Cheche failed to switch the factory to machines he resolved to

kill the lector, Juan, in order to claim his revenge. There was a short atmosphere of suspense when Cheche walks into the room. The mood of Anna in the Tropics enhances the genre. They both have a depressing feeling with some happy, comedic, and romantic ambience on the side. The mood in many ways affect the colors used in the play. The main colors used in Anna in the Tropics were a saturated blue and amber, there was also a cool purple used to give scenes a cold feeling. In the beginning there was a hot and uncomfortable yellow during the cockfights while on the other side there was a peacock blue, which I already stated that I didn’t quite like for this scene. The mood of the play was heightened during and after the climax. During the scene there was an eerie sort of mood when Cheche entered the room, then he shot the lector, which startled everyone in the theater. After this incident everyone is mourning the loss of the lector, which gives the play a depressing atmosphere. One of the things I notice that also enhanced the mood was the movement of lights between cues. For example, when the mood was energetic the time between the cues was faster, but when the there was low energy and sort of a sad mood, the lights were a bit slower. The plasticity of the play was very effective. The characters popped out and were more animated. This was mostly due to the colors mostly used. The saturated ambers and blues during most of the play was very pleasing to my eyes and even the yellow and purple in the room above the factory was very effective for the warm romantic moments with Santiago and his wife. There were some scenes that the characters looked a bit two-dimensional. One of the scenes was at the beginning when it was the focus was switching between the men at the cockfight and the women at the pier. The yellow at the fight and the blue at the pier overpowered any other colors that might have been there. I’m not sure if that was the way the light designer intended it, but I didn’t really like the flatness of the first scene. Another scene was at the very end when all the

lights fade out and only Palomo, reading the story of Anna Karenina, and Conchita are seen in two spotlights with a pink hue to them. Although this scene was very warm and inviting I would have liked them to pop out more. All in all I thought the play was a success. I enjoyed it immensely. The play was visible which was the most important element. The light designer was effective in creating a selective focus during important scenes. The lights created a separate but cooperating feeling that went along in with the mood and made it known to the audience. Another enjoyable element was the plasticity of the characters, although I would have liked a bit more of it in some scenes. The stage was evenly distributed with light and most of the colors fit into the play. I did not, however, like some of the color choices in a few of the scenes. These elements of lighting also portrayed the theme and genre clearly. Each of these factors heightened the climax. All of the actors were convincing and played their characters well, which, along with the lights and sound, made this play very enjoyable to watch.