2004 is hardly ancient history. Sure, things have changed in this country, but in many ways we’re still feeling the remnants of the previous administration. We don’t need it treated like a relic, or a chapter in the proverbial textbook.
Giant portraits of George W. Bush hover upstage in Eduardo Machado’s Havana Journal, 2004, presiding over the action with a syndicated wry grin. They are brightly painted, some tipped and lopsided. They stare at the audience, but seem to mock the characters, and are, despite the ubiquity of the image, the most interesting thing about the play, a co-production between INTAR (of which Machado is Artistic Director) and Theater for the New City.
Ruth (Theater for the New City’s Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field), a Columbia professor in her seventies, is disillusioned with the Ivy League world. She is disappointed in her students’ writing, and feels trapped by her unrequited love for a slightly younger colleague. In search of a break and intellectual renewal, she takes a trip to Cuba, hoping to find people she can connect with.
The thin and circular plot – Ruth learns, upon return, that what she was looking for was not so far away after all -- is ultimately a platform for a series of political issues and a strong pedantic agenda regarding U.S. relations with and perceptions of Cuba. And there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that – plays can be political and viewpoints should be strong. But heated politics and a strong stance can’t excuse poor construction. In fact, the play, weak to begin with, only seems to crumble under the strength of the ideology and politics.
The trouble starts with Ruth off the bat. Field’s performance makes a woman who should be an astute, if frustrated, professor into a maniacally lovesick puppy. Her squawking, squealing and yelping reads as crazy, not impassioned. It’s hard to buy a Columbia professor acting like a pouty child, and further, as ignorant of world history as Ruth often shows herself to be. She is shockingly so.
Each person the audience meets during Ruth’s trip, Cuban or American, is a bullet point in the argument the play constructs: a musician who wants to see his brother in the States more than once every few years, a disrespectful tourist who objectifies the exotic, a gay Southern Republican who is in love with a Cuban teenager whose town disapproves of their relationship, but he cannot leave. Ruth learns of the reality of living in Cuban society – she describes herself as a Marxist, and idealizes Cuban culture. Her idealization and radical beliefs can’t be terribly strong, though, if she abandons them after disappointment in one single person. She returns to Columbia still grumpy, still feeling alone, and whining more than she was when she left.
Not to be dismissive of these issues for a split second – quite the opposite, actually. They are important, and complicated – but more relevantly, more complicated, surprisingly, than the play makes them out to be with an ideology that tries to make The Situation as simple as a better-than/worse-than comparison. It’s something that needs awareness spread, which makes it even more of a shame that the play falters so heavily. If only it could have captured and put forth the kind of spirit Cuban culture embodies so beautifully.
For tickets and more information, visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net.
Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg
