Anna in the Tropics

This play was definitely one of the best I have ever read. There were so many words and sentences that I had to underline because of Cruz's rich writing. He sure knows how to write in layers and make the readers think as much as possible. I especially liked the part in the beginning where Conchita talks to Marela about changing destiny. "That's how witches get started - with brown sugar. Then they begin to play with fire. Look at what happened to Rosario, she put a spell on her lover and the man died. And not only did she lose her man; she's gone to hell herself" (15). This quote reminds me of how my mom tells me not to be superstitious. I found it hilarious and entertaining.

I also enjoyed the strange relationships in the play and the way the characters feel about love. One reading brought on so many suspicions between Conchita and Palomo. Conchita accuses her husband then and there for having a mistress, and finds herself a man to have an affair with. "You don't make love to me like you used to" (35), Conchita complains. Her husband knows that the book Juan Julian is reading to them will ruin their marriage.

I really enjoyed this play, especially after recently reading "Waiting for Godot", and totally HATING it. :)

Anna in the Tropics

I thouroughly enjoyed reading Anna in the Tropics because the play maintained a sense of simplicity in its style, making it a quick yet enjoyable read. The subject matter is delivered with a strong sense of clarity through its beautiful style. Although the basic subjects were clear, it left the reader hungering for more—a deeper understanding of what they had just absorbed. Cruiz’s style of writing was extremely approachable, using very clear cut storytelling to transform into something of more depth and complexity. This play was much more interesting to me, from the standpoint of comparison to other works we have examined in this class, because of its ability to captivate but not aggravate its readers. It’s a beautiful example of classic linear story structure.

Through this play, I am given the opportunity to examine my own abilities as a writer. I personally, am a poetry writer, and I feel as though a lot of the things we have read so far in this class are more poetry oriented. Anna in the Tropics is a more linear fiction piece with strong story development and a fantastic use of language. It inspired me to work on other forms of writing in my own time as well, possibly even to attempt something along this same style.

I enjoyed Anna in the Tropics. I like how Cruiz was able to use accessible, simple storytelling with a relatable and classic plot to do many complex things. He is able to contrast the convoluted complexity of Anna Karenina with his own Anna in the Tropics while still keeping the homage clear, pitting the modern problem of technology versus tradition against the ancient conflicts of interpersonal interactions, and touch on such issues as education of the lower class, all with a clear and linear plot that was enjoyable to read.

So much of the material in this class has been alienating to read or obscured and inaccessible, all in the name of complex higher meanings. This play defies those to me, by showing you can acknowledge all of these complexities and non traditional goals without having to abandon linear story telling or simple pleasurable prose.

The only thing that really bugged me was the urination bit in the beginning. What was the purpose of it? It did not fit her character for the rest of the play, that is a juvenile, almost incompetent action, one that suggests that the character cannot even control their own body let alone their own actions. Was it supposed to be a joke? Additionally what is the ‘sound’ of someone peeing themselves? This is a nitpicky criticism but it came so early in the play that I went into the rest with a some what negative opinion, though as I pointed out above, it did win me over in the end.

Anna in the Tropics

After reading Anna in the Tropics I found myself experiencing a feeling of satisfaction. This play had an air of simplicity that I find refreshing. By writing in a manner that allows readers to understand the surface of the text, Cruz in turn has his audience wanting to search for a deeper connection to his play.

One passage that really intrigued me was in Act Two, Scene 1 where Juan Julian and Cheche are debating the reasons to switch to a machine that rolls cigars, instead of continuing the more traditional method, currently in place, of hand rolling. Juan Julian, takes Cheche’s idea of modernity and the need to keep up with a fast paced world and throws it in his face, making the point that the whole point of a cigar is to step out of that modern world. He notes that a cigarette is the modern answer to the cigar, and that is what is actually preventing the potential progress of their sales.

I’m not exactly sure why this scene grabbed my attention so intensely; perhaps it’s simply my interest in things of the past becoming obsolete, which makes sense considering the way technology is progressing. That contented feeling I experienced after reading this play, I believe took place because I was able to carry it around with me, and feel the pages of the story. Soon that feeling might be passé and just a fond memory.

Time

Curled up on my couch during a rainy day, I read “Time”by Anne Bogart. And to be honest, it could have not been more fitting. Bogart reveals perspectives on time, both as someone experiencing it and as somoene looking at it objectively. I found that the ways she expressed time most interesting. For instance, she discusses how to some it is a number on a clock, some the sound of a bell, and others a visual change of the day. She challenges how real time actually is and how it effects those that measure it so closely. This is a compelling argument for anyone who frequently experiences a creative process. Bogart explains that time is in fact a partner in completing a creative piece rather than an enemy. I found this idea most striking because it allowed me to reevaluate my own writing process. Rather than staring at the clock telling myself “You only have two hours!,” Bogart reveals that time is merely an illustion. When one feels connected to a creative piece, time should not effect them. As I read her piece I could physically feel my mood relaxing. “Time” did not feel very much like time at all, but an objective understanding of how much control it actually has.

Time

Bogart made a lot if interesting points in the treatment of time and priority within art. I generally share the views she expressed during her explanation on the subjectivity of time, giving cohesion to my otherwise nebulous understanding of the subject. Some moments are irrelevant, forgotten so soon afterward they might as well not have happened at all no matter how long they took on the clock. Conversely, a few moments can take pages and pages to describe and stay with the reader/viewer forever, just like a wonderful or traumatic moment can stick in the mind in real life, regardless of technical length. The quote about tragedy becoming comedy with added speed is true too - compressing or abridging a long dialogue can make even the most tragic of subject matter seem trivial, and everyone knows that speeding up film can make any scene funnier. I have a lot to think about with the use of time in my future works - how can I play with it to enrich the experience?

Creative Response to Time

Here's my creative response to Anne Bogart's Time.

Age

Age is the number of years one has been living life. In some cultures when you are born you add a year. It is denoted by the number of candles you put on your birthday cake. After ten, there are too many to count. In numerology, age is important component to compute your fortune.

Currently, we are in the age of Aquarius. We are in the age of global communication and technical innovation. We are in the age where battles are still fought over religion and in the name of peace.

Age is the wear and tear on paintings in the Louvre. The weathered and worn marble statues in the Colosseum. The flasks uncovered in ruins once held wine that was aged to perfection. Wheels of sharp chedder cheese ages for months on shelves. Soybeans ferment in covered pots. The roots and rings on a tree tells its age and history. Wrinkles on a human face tell us their age and the journeys of their lives.

Time

I'm not so sure I share everyone's enthusiasm for the article on time. While I did appreciate the writing and enjoyed reading it, I wasn't necessarily as effected by it as much as everyone else seems to be. It was decently insightful and I loved some of the examples that she gave (especially the one about the Jazz musician), but that's all they were to me, neat stories. I think I was even less affected because she spends a lot of time talking about paintings and sculptures, art forms that I have minimal interest in. I could see myself enjoying this article more if it was more focused on time in the practice of writing specifically instead in a more general sense. Or perhaps I am too shallow to fully appreciate what she is trying to say through this article, either way, it was a good read for me but not much more.

Time

I thought Bogart did a good job making the distinction between objective time and subjective time. This was never something I really put a lot of thought into when I work with fiction, but having it broken down into terms like this made it easier to turn to my own work and apply this. I found it interesting to think of the times I've read or written a physical representation of time in a piece of fiction, be it a clock, watch, etc. This piece made me wonder why we use these images. What about time are we trying to represent with these?
I think the most helpful line of the article that simplified things in a way I can apply them to my own writing is, "You cannot literally manipulate time, but you can influence perception of it" (129). Time is a difficult thing to work with in writing and molding it can be confusing when you don't have the right approach. This quote made it easier for me to understand what I set out to do in a piece of writing, that I'm using words, pacing, and tension to manipulate a reader rather than the story.

TIME

This peice will stay with me for quite some time, maybe forever. I was immediately seduced by Bogart's theory of art and time, it's unique relationship and delicasy of such a paradox. Bogart goes on to explore the function of art; to awaken what is asleep. When I read this, I see the awakening of one's imagination- one's wounds, memories, desires, even one's innerchild. Art displays something beyond the objective routine of day to day life and it's very fixed material presence of both the man made and nature. Art, is the awakening of what is asleep in us, most of the time, if not all the time. I just loved this, and being an artist myself- this resonates with me on so many levels, as I personally turn to art as a form of awakening and meditation.

Bogart speaks of subjective time vs. objective time, and in the "time" I have taken to read this piece I learned that I just might be lost, endlessly in subjective time, pondering Bogart's theories...in fact, I believe time is subjective in all cases, depending on your immersing surroundings. Some of Bogart's examples of this are...

"While sitting in a car at a stoplight...the time between the red and green lights can feel endless. Three minutes in a boxing rings is eternity."

And in the family of time, serving as the mothership of all that we percieve as "time", are the subsets of time that are personal, relational and collective.

"There are many aspects and subsets of time: the internal clock, the individual's fated time on earth, the changing times within relationships and endeavors, the timelessness of sleep and dreaming and the times to act and times to be still, breath time, responsiveness in time, and so on."

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of my response to Bogart's piece, in fact, if we are given a similar prompt for our Final Paper, as we were given for our mid-term, I have already decided I will more deeply engage myself in "Time"

What a stunning work; subjective, creative, right brained, intuitive....unique!

Time is on my side

I loved all that Anne Bogart explored with time. More than loved, in fact. Exploring the concept of time has been one of my favorite interests for a couple of years now. The perception of time and the roles our own space (person) play in time’s progression are endlessly fascinating. It makes so much sense to investigate time through the lens of art, for better defining the relationship between the two brings us a better understanding of what it is exactly to create in the first place. Though Bogart focused on the theatre, all art mediums are affected in time, if not in the same way, definitely to the same magnitude. Essentially I believe art seeks out presence, which is a place of timelessness. It is thus the artist’s job to create an environment where time is suspended, or at least manipulated so that the audience’s own concept of time is suspended or manipulated. If the artist can embody their medium with this kind of presence, that opens the gate for the audience to embody the thing that is created so that they may have a unique experience that is both part of time and timeless. If artists are supposed to be vessels through which something greater than the individual flows, what is subsequently created serves as a portal to the rest of the world to another dimension so to speak where time ceases to exist in the linear fashion of day-to-day living.

Anna in the Tropics

This is one of the few plays I've ever read. Plays often get the short end of the attention stick when it comes to the Creative Writing department, and I'm glad to see that we have Anna in the Tropics and Wit. Unfortunately, I've never read Anna Karenina, but the parts they did have read out loud in the play I noticed correlated with the story line, and I knew enough of Anna Karenina and its crazy love triangles. I didn't really like the character Cheche, he seemed to obvious of a bad guy, and perhaps that's just personal taste. The only time he really seemed human was when he was trying to persuade the workers to accept the new machine, to bring in modernity.

The clash between traditional and modern ideals, the romance and other social undertones of the play made it overall a very enjoyable work for me.

COMMENT SECTION:

Kate: I agree, I thought it was really interesting to see how much the novel was affecting their personal lives. Had it not been for that novel specifically, would Conchita have had that affair with Juan Julian?

BRent Hutchinson: "Hot and cold" is the perfect way to describe the novel--the cold and calculated language of Tolstoy mixed with Cruz's very passionate voice, a voice much like Juan Julian's.

aliset: Your poem really captures the mood portrayed by Marela. She seemed to float above her duties and life and observe, much like the dew you described.

TIme

Time has always been a difficult thing for me to grasp, it gives structure to our lives in a way that is incomparable with any other human invention. One thing in particular stood out to me in this essay, that if you slow down a bit you'll realize you've got all the time you need. I'm a career procrastinator and I believe wholeheartedly with this statement, when things get down to the wire and my due date is rapidly approaching it seems all my thoughts come together, instead of three weeks of concerted effort a 5 page paper or creative work will take me an hour (assuming research is done before hand). This decisive limitation I impose on myself is the catalyst that allows my work to be completed. It is kind of like the weeks of inactivity were filled with subconscious brainstorming and rough drafts, in the longer fictional piece I've been working on the characters proceed in much the same way, they live their lives without acting on their agendas until the shits about to hit the fan and then they spring into action, mainly to avoid consequences rather than to accomplish goals.

A last note on time making beauty into the norm: I used to be an art major, I did ceramics for about seven years, some years saw drastic improvement but after the third or so I stopped trying out new forms, it was enough for me to keep making the same bottles and bowls because I experienced each in the moment and felt my skill increasing. However, everyone else saw stagnation, to them I had stopped progressing and lost my creativity. Until I read the section in this text on subjective time and time making one numb to art I hadn't realized why it was I felt each piece was unique when outwardly they looked the same.

Anna in the Tropics

I loved this play. I am surprised to see myself type that because I'm really not one who enjoys plays. Maybe I just haven't read the right ones until now, though.

First thing's first, I loved the interpretation of Anna Karenina. I read Anna Karenina two years ago and definitely did not sense the passion within it that Nilo Cruz does. I mean, yeah, there's a love triangle, things are messy, people are trying to follow their hearts in a time when the heart's desires aren't considered that important, there's violence, but somewhere after page 400, finishing the book was more about finishing it than enjoying it. This might have to do with the chapters where we follow Levin's thought processes and learn about all the politics of the time. In any case, it was really inspiring to read Anna in the Tropics because it condenses Tolstoy's moments of magic into an enjoyable experience. I also liked how the presence of Anna Karenina within the play enhances the characters' personalities within the play. Marela is an innocent and beautiful dreamer who doesn't get the man she wants, like Kitty. Cheche and Palomo are the jealous types like Anna's husband (ah I forget his name). Conchita has an affair and discovers new ways to be alive like Anna Karenina.

I think the final scene where Cheche shoots Juan Julian is amazing too. The story parallels his action, and shows the desperation of Cheche. There's no begging for mercy, no explanation of motive required. The audience knows why Cheche is committing the murder and how it will affect the rest of the characters.

Anna in the Tropics response

The idea of telling a story within a story intrigued me about this piece. How the romance novel affected the characters within the play got me to thinking about stories and what they really are. It seems like everyone's life is a story to them, and the ones that they hear within that life connect them to the lives of others, whether they reflect to actual people or not? Follow me?



a story line, in literal translation
is not any more than a life.
which character is a person we know
hope to know
hope to describe
and one day hope to love
as if they were encased in
an imaginary body.

we sift through layers of situations
looking for one that
affects our outer reality
and can provide something
more than
sustenance
for our subjectivity.

where is the line defining
a plotline from wishful thinking?
when do the tales of others
become recollection of ourselves
and the places we never will travel to
and the conversations we will never have

Anna in the Tropics

One of the things that I loved about this play was the way Cruz was able to infuse Cuban tradition with the literature of Tolstoy, two seemingly, completely different things. By structuring the play around the reading of Anna Karenina, not only is Cruz able to comment about the parallels between the characters of the play with those from Tolstoy's novel (which suggests such passions and romances are universal and, as suggested in the play, entirely human), but also suggest the romance we have lost with the coming of modernity. This is exemplified by the inclusion of lectors which has been a tradition since the Taino indians as said by Juan, giving the play a romantic yearning for what we have lost.

Anna in The Tropics

Anna in the Tropics presents differing perspectives on how to approach life. One of those approaches is through violence. In the openeing scene of the story, we are introduced to the game of cockfighting. In the game, victory goes to the opponent who is the fastest, strongest and smartest. These are elements that Cheche, a man who is cautious but also believes that if approaching a problem with reason doesn't work, then power and violence will surely get the job done. This line of behaior is evidenced when Cheche grabs Marela and forces her to him after rejecting his looks and attempts to seduce her. Further examples are when Cheche asserts his power over reason when he kills the lector whom he believes hsi iews are practical in their modern age. Howeer, these actions seem to be born of failure because they can be seen as a reaction to failing to mechanize the factory.

Adversely, the characters of Ofelia and Santiago seem to hold a more empathetic view. They oppose the mechanization of the factory because the process would take away workers jobs. Instead of agreeing with a majority of the people at the factory they decide to invest in a new line of cigars they plan to strategically market and sell. Another example of the power of reson in the story comes during a piotal moment when the workers are trying to decide whether or not to install machinery in the factory. Ofelia and Juan Julian insist that they take the democratic process by putting it to vote. These clashes with Cheche's assertion of power as the two use judgment and reason to come to a solution.

I felt that this story was reaffirming in the fact that it was about people whom decide to use thinking over intimidating uses of power. The power of the mind is emphasized in the story with positive consequences while Cheche, whom believed that through displays of power you can achieve any agenda, was driven to madness at the refusal of his plans. I identified instead with Ofelia whom sought the most logical solution that would help her fellow workers. I would agree with Cheche's view to the extent that the workers need modern technology to work with so they can compete and be more efficient. That to me is sound reasoning, but not at the expense of other people whom were replaced by machines.

Anna in the Tropics

"There is nothing like reading a winter book in the middle of summer. Its like having a fan or an icebox by your side to relieve the heat and caloric nights."

I think this line does a wonderful job of describing the juxtapositions that make the story. Nilo Cruz has many opposing forces acting at the same time. Marela and Conchita are caught up in the romance of the literature and contrast the disenchanted and desperate Cheche. Cheche's arguments for the cigar rolling machines oppose the romance of hand rolling the cigars that Santiago and Ofelia seem to value.

The reflection of Conchita, Palamo and Juan Julian in Tolstoy's story give a good structure. The passages from Tolstoy build our expectations and then Crus delivers scene's that match those expectations with the added benefit of a contrast of Tampa and St. Petersburg. Hot and cold.

emiT- tragoB ennA

"Ultimately, one cannot touch time. We grasp it with our minds, not our hands." While I was reading this essay and arrived at this line I just felt to inspired. I stopped reading and wrote my Writing assignment for this week. Towards the end of her essay she tends to stray away from what is interesting, pushing on even though much more isn't really needed. As a whole I came away with some pretty good and insightful passages. Some were so deep that I don't really know where to begin in interpreting it. "The essence of time as most concretely experienced is the continuous unbroken passage of existence." Umm. What?

Jason

Anna and the Tropics

Didn't you just love the way Marela would go off on dreams?

She made me dreamy...

"Marela: No, everything in life dreams. A bicycle dreams of becoming a boy, an umbrella dreams of becoming the rain, a pearl dreams of becoming a woman, and a chair dreams of becoming a gazelle and running back to the forest.

Ofelia: But, my child, people like us... We have to remember to keep our feet on the ground and stay living inside our shoes and not have lofty illusions."

(pg. 30)

Untitled

I dreamt once of becoming a dew drop

It was a surprisingly short process.

My molecules

each one

turning lighter and soft

Dispersing

Till i was a dew drop.

Then the sun came

from behind that short hill.

and I rose to the sky.

To the clouds.

To the stars.

The moon never looked so bright,

the earth,

never so small.

never so far away.

Then I cried,

a dew drop star.

For my love was far below,

and i was being pulled.

Gravitating

towards the sun.

so hot.

so hot.