Juan Javier Cardenas and Crystal Field in a scene
from Havana Journal, 2004
(Photo credit: Carol Rosegg)

In 2001, Cuban-born American playwright Eduardo Machado premiered his Havana Is Waiting in which a Cuban-born man returns to his birthplace after a gap of 30 years to try to come to terms with his guilt as well as his life. In his latest play, Havana Journal, 2004, he reverses the situation: Ruth, (played by legendary downtown star Crystal Field), a Columbia University professor of creative writing, still a sixties Marxist, makes her first trip to Cuba to seek out an idealistic socialist revolution and is taken in by her own fantasies. A co-production of Theater for the New City, (artistic director Field), and INTAR, (artistic director Machado), this follows a previous collaboration between them called Paula last season.

It is a fascinating premise, drenched in irony. However, Machado’s treatment is preachy and didactic. Havana Journal, 2004 is filled with heartfelt anger at hypocrisy and compromise, but there is too much telling, not enough showing. Machado takes the easy way and has characters complain about what is wrong, but doesn’t demonstrate through incident. The dialogue veers from clever insights to didactic and dogmatic pronouncements. Although the characters are more than mouthpieces for political ideologies, the play is simply a series of five conversations, rather than a series of dramatic events.

When the play begins in the spring of 2004, Ruth is in her office at Columbia attempting to grade short stories by her creative writing students. However, their lack of daring and honest emotion makes her feel more frustrated than she already is. Using a tape recorder which she has turned into a sort of spoken journal, Ruth rants on about her disillusionment with the America of George W. Bush, teaching rich, spoiled kids at an Ivy League college more interested in capitalism than education, a love affair that has recently been broken off by her slightly younger colleague, and life in our time in general. This device is mainly to reveal Ruth’s character and personality before her long-awaited summer trip to Cuba.

Ruth is thrilled by her Cuban experience and only sees what she wants to see. A pre-arranged appointment with Reynaldo (Juan Javier Cardenas), a conductor of an all-female orchestra, to deliver money from her friend Janet, goes even better than she has expected and she is swept off her feet by the handsome Latin. At her hotel, Ruth meets Tom (Liam Torres), a gay American with a strong Southern accent, a reactionary Republican who represents everything she detests, and he attempts to shatter her illusions. Back in America, she discovers that she has understood little of what she saw, particularly when she encounters Ivan (David Skeist), the janitor who cleans her office. He has grown up in a Soviet socialist republic and is not trying to con her for his own benefit.

While the dialogue is often pointed, perceptive and witty, all of the conversations go on far too long. Reynaldo’s con of Ruth is too obvious and her naiveté is hard to believe considering how politically astute she is. Tom’s role is extremely ambiguous: he attempts to pick up Reynaldo; then claims to be a member of a secret organization bringing money to the Cuban underground. When he meets Ruth in the hotel bar, he boasted of working for the CIA, but, on the other hand, reveals that he is desperately trying to get his lover out of Cuba. It is difficult to know if this is meant as a parody of Our Man in Havana or is it instead some kind of metaphor about Cuban-American relations.

The year 2004 is obviously significant for the author but remains mysterious for the non-Cuban members of the audience. The huge portraits of Bush that surround the playing area set the era but was 2004 the year that his administration began prosecuting Americans for disregarding the ban on travel to Cuba with heavy fines? It is never clear. When Ruth is reminded of the risk she runs by Tom (who is in the same boat) she gloats that she would be overjoyed to be a martyr. We never do find out if she is prosecuted nor how she got in and out of the country.

Stefanie Sertich has obtained fine performances from her cast but the pacing is too slow, considering that hardly anything happens in this extremely talky play. The play is Ruth’s journey and Field who is onstage for all except one scene keeps the focus on her character. Under Sertich’s direction she is more subtle and less mannered that she used to be, but she still gives every line her own inimitable twist. Ruth is a believable character, but we learn everything about her from what she tells us, rather than from any actions.

Most memorable is Skeist as the darkly brooding, taciturn yet impassioned former Soviet victim who in a few sentences is able to explain the horrors of Marxist socialism that Ruth failed to see on her trip. Cardenas exudes a great deal of charm as the Cuban musician with his very strong opinions about music and his flirtatious demeanor. However, he tips his hand too soon that he is not as idealistic as he claims to be. Torres’ Tom is more problematic. He is convincing in each of his guises but there is no hint as to whether he is acting a series of roles, role playing for fun, or meant to be a mysterious character who might even be spying on Ruth.

Maruti Evans has designed an all red setting, aside from the large colorful pictures of George W. Bush scattered behind the raised playing area. It symbolizes Ruth’s anger and Marxist beliefs, as well as the torridness of the tropics. When the male actors are not on stage, they sit in chairs out side of the playing area that suggests an airplane cabin. Evans’ lighting design effectively differentiates the play’s four locales. Most of Michael Bevins’ costumes colorfully complement the intense color of the stage. The Caribbean atmosphere is enhanced by musical selections from the albums Raigal and Danaza de las Brujas by Carmerata Romeu, as well as original music by Michael Moricz.

There is a great deal of autobiography in Eduardo Machado’s Havana Journal, 2004, as we have come to expect from his previous plays. He has been a professor at Columbia’s School of the Arts, and he did make several pilgrimages back to Cuba in the past decade. Much of the play is obviously based on his own righteous indignation. Unfortunately, for all his expertise as a veteran playwright, the characters tend to be more interesting than the story, the problems more interesting than the monologues. Havana Journal, 2004 has a fascinating premise still trying to get out of what seems an early draft. When Machado dramatizes his theme, this play will be a major achievement.

(through April 18)
Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., between 9^th and 10^th Streets, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-254-1109 or http://www.theaterforthenewcity.net