Santa Cruz is a late-romantic play, par excellence. Its theme is the Then and Now of love and how they join in the human heart for eternity. It tells the story of a woman and her relationships with two men—a traditional story in this sense. In the reminiscing of seven happy days that had been lived seventeen years ago, the past is brought to life. It is a contrast between a family manor with its snow-covered walls and a far-away place in the southern hemisphere with its colorful and unwalled, wide-open sides. It dramatizes the difference between being sheltered in a permanent home and being homeless—conditions that trouble not only us who live in this century, but that are characteristic of human life in general.

It is also a play of the suspension of time, in which the rich world of "outside" merges without break into...