Remy is a freelance writer in Warrington, Florida. In this essay, Remy considers the ways in which Cruz uses a triangular structure to develop character relationships within the play.

The play Anna in the Tropics harkens back to a time long since forgotten, when the cigar factories of Ybor City were bustling with activity and immigrants held hopes of a better future. As Nilo Cruz convincingly demonstrates, life in a cigar factory was hard because it was subjected to so much uncertainty and doubt, but that is not to say that it was without its pleasures. In re-creating an atmosphere of strife, conflict, and division within the factory, Cruz, borrowing a page, figuratively speaking, from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, uses the relationship of Anna, her husband, and Vronsky as a model for developing character relationships within Anna in the Tropics. By presenting his characters in triangular relationships to...