Anna in the Tropics

Anna in the Tropics is a production by Alexander Ogaryov of the play by the Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz. The play won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

In 2011, the play was translated into Russian by playwright Yevgeny Kazachkov as part of the New American Plays for Russia program curated by John Freedman.

The action of Anna in the Tropics takes place in 1929 at a family-owned tobacco factory in a small provincial town in Florida. At the factory, the workers traditionally roll cigars while novels are being read to them as entertainment. A new reader, an elegant young man, comes to the factory. He chooses to read Anna Karenina, which has an unexpected and extraordinary effect on everyone involved.

The factory workers become immersed in the novel; in fact, they begin to live through it, projecting the characters’ destinies onto themselves. The passions of Tolstoy’s novel are woven into their lives, changing the course their lives take.