This is a play that I had to read for one of my classes. It was a very short play and a very easy read, if not a comfortable object for reflection. The action revolves around the arrival of a new lector in a traditional cigar factory who chooses to read the novel Anna Karenina to the cigar rollers that work there. The main female characters, Ofelia, Conchita, and Marela are all taken in by the story. Marela and Conchita are especially enamored of the novel and imagine themselves as Anna-like characters. For Marela, it is the appeal of the exotic and glamor; for Conchita it is to justify her affair with the lector Juan Julian since she and her husband are no longer (or perhaps never had been) in love and therefore do not require fidelity. For the men, there is more of a conflict. Cheche, whose brother owns the cigar factory, lost his wife to an affair and therefore finds the story of Anna Karenina a painful subject that brings back horrible memories for him. He begins to become unhinged and fixates on Marela as the object more of lust than affection as she tries to imitate Anna Karenina. The play seems to parallel the novel, but having never read (and having no desire to) read Anna Karenina I can’t really say how much it does or where it diverges from the plot of the book.
In the end, I’ll try not to totally ruin the plot. A part of me thinks this play is classic in its own right and worth keeping in my library, but another part of me thinks that it tries too hard and should be thrown in the trash. And maybe burned. It’s hard to find where to draw the line, and it’s hard to see if this play really crosses the line. Since the actual act of having an affair is written to be acted out I know that I’m too conservative to want to read about it, let alone watch it onstage, and I think it rather heavily treads the line between moderately classy but risque and complete trash.
I suppose it’s something worth reading – I’m not sure I’d want to see the play – just to have the experience of having read something like it, but I’d certainly label it as “adults only”.
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