'Anna' in Tampa: End of Stogie

From: The Washington Post

Date: October 11, 2004

Author: Peter Marks

The only thing that catches fire in Arena Stage's disappointing "Anna in the Tropics," the story of a family of cigar makers in sultry, Depression-era Tampa, is the tobacco.

Nilo Cruz's 2002 play has had a privileged childhood: a Pulitzer Prize, a star-powered Broadway production, mountings at highly regarded regional theaters across the country. Such a glittering rollout suggests a work of more than embryonic promise. But what director Jo Bonney presents on the stage of the Kreeger Theater is a surprisingly static piece of drama, one that fails to instill even a scintilla of urgency in the combustible relationships it recounts.

Prettiness here is an affliction. The factory in which the Cuban immigrant family stuffs and wraps its cigars is oddly immaculate, and so is Cruz's poetry. The people of "Anna in the Tropics" speak in exquisite-sounding allusions, and no one more reliably than Marela (Michele Vazquez), "Anna's" ingenue, who is given to dewy declarations like "A bicycle dreams of being a boy." The more burdensome freight on the play's literary manifest has to do with the interweaving of themes from Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," which figures heavily in the plot; the novel is narrated daily in the factory by a "lector" (Jason Manuel Olazabal), who has been hired to read stories to the illiterate workers.

You'd think that all these bookish conceits would lend the piece an air of intense cerebration, but the schematic "Anna in the Tropics" actually plays as if it has not been rigorously worked out. This is especially the case after intermission, when the dramatist makes a disastrous foray into melodrama, resorting improbably to a rape and some gunfire to invigorate the play's resolution. The report of a pistol may have been a stunning stage effect in the time of Ibsen and Chekhov; in 21st-century theater, however, gunpowder smells a lot like desperation.

Cruz's subject and setting certainly provide rich material for atmospheric drama, in the style of Chekhov. It is 1929 in Ybor City, a section of Tampa where many Cubans have come to live and work, and where the traditions of their native island do not always mesh with their polyglot adoptive culture. The cigar factory owned by Santiago (Mateo Gomez) and his brother Cheche (Chaz Mena) is a petri dish for the clash of values: Santiago and his wife, Ofelia (Marian Licha), are advocates of the old, elegant way of doing business, including the employment of the urbane lector; Cheche is equally set on change, on sweeping out antique methods and importing the tools of the more modern society they've joined.

The shopworn roles of men and women are also under attack in "Anna in the Tropics." Santiago and Ofelia's older daughter, Conchita (Yetta Gottesman), bristles at the inequity in her marriage to Palomo (Felix Solis); she yearns for the freedom to look for love outside her marriage, as Palomo has done. It is Olazabal's dapper lector who is the flash point in both the romantic and economic themes of the story, and it comes as no great shock to learn which of the characters is the victim of the crushing blows that jealousy and modernity can deliver.

Cruz's gift is the decorous turn of phrase; language is what seems to interest him, and as a result his characters are all artfully articulate. You can see, too, why the notion of a dreary world of piecework immeasurably uplifted by the words of Tolstoy or Dickens would tickle his fancy. While he's able to write his way into the heart of a miserably unfulfilled wife, however, he struggles to write himself out of a scene, and so time after time in "Anna in the Tropics," a dramatic situation tends to drift off in wispy clouds. We're dragged, rather than propelled, through events, and the result is an evening that slogs along to an uncertain conclusion.

Bonney doesn't add sinew or muscle to Cruz's character-driven narrative, and the production is not deeply evocative. Set designer Loy Arcenas does a serviceable job of taking us inside the factory, conjuring a dark interior of brick and timber, and Ilona Somogyi's costumes are handsome and bland. The snippets of music between scenes, in fact, are the liveliest indication of the time and the place to which "Anna" is supposed to take us.

The actors all succeed in the essential task of seeming of the period; in some cases, however, they're confronted with characters whose identities do not evolve in stimulating ways. Licha's Ofelia, for instance, has a big part and is a warm creation, but also evinces little vital function in the story. Possessed of the most nuanced of the roles, Solis and Gottesman also offer the most incisive portrayals. Gottesman, in particular, gives a voluptuous credibility to a woman in search of a more potent way of satisfying a need for attention and affection.

That's all the slow burn that this "Anna" has to offer, unfortunately. The rest is just slow.

'O Jerusalem' a Thrilling Journey

From: AP Online

Date: March 18, 2003

Author: Justine Glanville

Dateline: NEW YORK It's true that "O Jerusalem," an exhilarating new play by A.R. Gurney at off-off-Broadway's Flea Theater, seems especially timely because of its subject matter.

After all, it touches on many of the issues now preoccupying people around the world: the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, American foreign policy, terrorism.

But at least in this expert production, Gurney's play manages to reach beyond its topical premise to pack a big, heartbreaking wallop. This is not a story about anything so cold as politics. Above all, it's about a man struggling to balance his ideals and personal relationships against a high-pressure career.

Although it lasts only 90 minutes, "O Jerusalem" feels like an epic, partly due to its unusual structure. It opens sometime in the future, when a theater troupe has discovered a lost play set around the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. They perform only excerpts from the work _ described as "long, rambling and tormented" _ and summarize the parts they consider boring.

The play-within-a-play structure allows Gurney and company to cover an astonishing amount of ground. With the flip of a scenery card and an announcement by one of the actors, scenes switch from Washington, D.C., to Tunisia to New England and back.

At the center of all that globe-trotting is Hartwell Clark (Stephen Rowe), a backslapping oil magnate appointed to be a U.S. envoy to the Middle East. His job exposes him to anti-U.S. sentiment abroad, and he begins to turn against capitalism. As Hartwell's new convictions take root, he gives in to his long-repressed love for Sally (Priscilla Shanks), an information officer.

Gurney works with a wider geographic and cultural lens than usual. His previous plays have dealt mostly with domestic turmoil among white, upper-class Protestants; here, although the conflicts are still personal, they have global repercussions. And one of the main characters is decidedly nonwhite: Amira (Rita Wolf), a Palestinian activist, completes a kind of love triangle with Sally and Hartwell.

Wolf, Rowe, Shanks and two swing performers (Chaz Mena and Mercedes Herrero) all deliver vital performances, helped in no small part by Gurney's crackling dialogue. Each scene pulses with life _ the sign of a playwright, a cast and a director (Jim Simpson) working in complete unity.

Like anything truly alive, "O Jerusalem" isn't always tidy. The relationship between Sally and Hartwell isn't fully developed, and the play ends on a preachy and falsely tragic note.

But like Stephen Adly Guirgis' "Our Lady of 121st Street," it has a scattershot energy and an ear for emotionally charged situations that make it totally engrossing.

When a play has those assets, it doesn't need current events to be relevant.

Adoption tale tugs at heart, funny bone: A theatrical journey of the heart pays off for both its author and Actors' Playhouse.

From: The Miami Herald

Date: May 13, 2007

Author: Christine Dolen

May 13--The forging of a family propels a funny, touching journey in Susan J. Westfall's The Boy from Russia, a play now getting its world premiere at Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables.

Developed through many drafts and over a number of years, the play has a history that precedes its existence as theater: Westfall and her husband adopted their younger son from a Russian orphanage.

That context wouldn't matter if Westfall hadn't found a way to make her story live as comedy-infused drama, but she most decidedly has.

The script could still use some tweaking and trimming; the ending, for example, feels like a dullish afterthought. But in this rare instance of Actors' Playhouse tackling a brand-new work, director David Arisco and a wondrously inventive cast have done both the play and playwright proud.

Initially, Jack Goldman (Avi Hoffman) and Beth Marshall (Sandy Ives) aren't on the same page about giving their biological son a sibling through adoption. Jack is enthused, Beth skittish and far less certain.

Then, in the office of understandably wary adoption agent Robert Wexler (Stephen G. Anthony), a fateful thing happens: Beth spies a tiny Russian boy on a grainy video and falls in love.

Through many twists, turns and emotional flip-flops, The Boy from Russia follows the couple's travails as they journey to Smolensk to bring home a son.

Hoffman and Ives are terrific as the Americans who blunder their way through numerous encounters in a land and language they don't quite get. Both mine the play's comedy (as when they prepare to make some very chilly love in former Cold War territory) as well as its deeply moving moments (Hoffman's first sighting of Jack's son-to-be -- whom the audience never sees -- is beautifully played).

However, through a combination of writing and acting alchemy, two Russian characters in Westfall's play come vibrantly close to overshadowing everyone else. As adoption "facilitator" Victor Chelnikov, Chaz Mena is mysterious, funny, flamboyantly emotional and as intoxicating as the very best Russian vodka. Russian actress Katya Ilina is a kind of wise-yet-crafty earth mother as translator Svetlana Lubskaya, whose nonrapport with Victor is slyly amusing.

In dual roles, Anthony is engaging as the illusion-shattering Wexler and volatile as a judge not averse to bribery. Kim Ostrenko glows as Beth's kid-inexperienced single sister, then transforms into the cooler Russian woman who has become a kind of guardian angel for the Goldmans' son-to-be.

Usually reliable set designer Gene Seyffer seems to have been stymied by having to fit the play's multiple locations onto the smaller stage of the upstairs Balcony Theatre; the result is unattractively minimalist.

Still, if the bulk of the production budget has gone into hiring these particular actors, that's money very well spent.

O Jerusalem

From: Variety

Date: March 24, 2003

Author: Charles Isherwood

A little irreverence might not be a bad thing when it comes to the endlessly fraught Palestine question. And A.R. Gurney's new play on the subject--yes, I did say A. R. Gurney--starts out in a pleasantly playful manner, promising to bring a light touch to a painfully fraught subject. But the pleasure gradually fades as the play devolves into an odd mixture of soap opera and op-ed column, and by the time it concludes, with the central character, an American diplomat, having become a martyr for the cause of peace, it has all but evaporated.

The play's elaborate conceit presents the text as having been written just after Sept. 11, then lost for some time. We are watching it at some distant time in the future. "Because it is a long, rambling and tormented piece," we are told, the actors narrate and edit as they go along, stepping out of character to explain what's happened in scenes they've decided to skip or shorten.

The story follows the quixotic diplomatic career of Hartwell Clark (Stephen Rowe), an oil man recruited by President Bush, pre-9/11, for a minor post in the ministry of Near Eastern affairs, as it is called. "Why do they say that?" asks his scornful wife, who has no interest in leaving comfy Houston for the scorching deserts. "Maybe it's nearer than we think," comes the answer, suggesting things won't be all fun and games.

Does this slick oil guy, who went to school with W, seem an unlikely figure for such a tense time? "Here's where we've cut some clunky lines which remind us that at this time the Bush administration had turned its back on the Middle East," comes the plausible explanation. "Which makes Hartwell's appointment possible, if not probable."

Such frank interjections continue intermittently as Hartwell dives into his job, although plausibility becomes a problem that can't really be brushed aside by a shrug of the shoulders in the text. Hartwell quickly becomes a figure of controversy when an old flame, a Palestinian intellectual with whom he had an affair at school, Amira (a sharp Rita Wolf), accosts him at a meet-and-greet cocktail party in Jordan and insists on a secret meeting. The womanizing Hartwell thinks romance is in the air, and risks official disapproval by pursuing the relationship.

But Amira has more urgent business. She warns Hartwell of an imminent terrorist attack on the U.S., the info coming from her son, a member of Hamas. More details will follow if Hartwell will take her son's peace plan for the holy land to his bosses. Eventually he does so (both warnings and plan are ignored, obviously), and becomes a crusader intent on finding a solution to the Palestinian problem that puts him at odds with his government's official, staunchly pro-Israel position: "When in God's name are they' going to realize that we are all in this together?" he asks, exasperated at gossip that labels him anti-Semitic for his position.

Unfortunately, Gurney's analysis of this complex territory doesn't get much more sophisticated than that query, which recurs more than once and is ultimately proffered as the play's unifying idea. The implicit suggestion, that the events of 9/11 might have been prevented if the U.S. had taken a more open-minded, and forthright, interest in the Palestinian question, is provocative, but it's also simplistic. And the points that Gurney makes throughout the play--on the hypocrisies and cruelties of U.S. policies, the peculiar attitudes of fundamentalist-Christians toward the question of the holy land, etc.--often reduce his characters to mere TV pundits in street clothes.

The interrelationships among the characters aren't explored with much more nuance. The dialogue tilts toward the soapy. ("We had a good thing going, didn't we, Amira?") And what are we to make of Hartwell's womanizing, anyway? When the fling with Amira doesn't pan out, he hits on another old friend, Sally, a U.S. Information Office exec who is somewhat tangential to the proceedings. If it's an attempt to give him some humanity, it backfires, since he comes off as a bit sleazy and desperate. Or are we to take Hartwell as a stand-in for the U.S.' love-'em-and-leave-'em politics? That's even more iffy.

The play is performed with chipper, informal professionalism by its cast of five, under the brisk direction of Flea a.d. Jim Simpson. But the characters remain two-dimensional, and Gurney's plotting only gets more ham-fisted as the play moves toward its tragic conclusion.

Presenting the text with a self-conscious wink--as if to excuse its implausibility by emphasizing its status as a fablelike commentary on events, not a depiction of them--doesn't really excuse the playwright's simplifications and sentimental contrivances. And the self-editing conceit eventually begins to beckon us: When the actors cheerily make reference to scenes they've edited out, it's hard not to wish the audience, too, could be let in on the process.

`El beso de la mujer arana' y la real validez de la audiencia
From: El Nuevo Herald

Date: January 26, 1999

Author: Norma Niurka

Entre los logros de la novela El Beso de la Mujer Araña, de Manuel Puig, convertida en película y musical de gran fama, se encuentra la perdurabilidad del tema y una extraña flexibilidad para transformarse a otros medios sin perder su esencia.

La novela llegó al celuloide en 1985 con el protagonismo de William Hurt, Raúl Juliá y Sonia Braga; prosiguió su camino de éxitos como Musical de Broadway, en versión de Terence McNally, alternando a Chita Rivera y María Conchita Alonso en un fantasioso papel de diva cinematográfica.

En ambos casos, el argumento gozaba de las ilimitadas posibilidades del cine o del musical, y la glamorosa mujer-araña tenía gran importancia. En el Encore Room, del Coconut Grove Playhouse, se ha estrenado como obra, desprovista de afeites (sin música, bailes, pantalla ni mujer-araña), otorgando a la puesta en escena la validez de la audacia.

Aquí el reto es representarla con el peso de la obra sobre sus dos intérpretes y sobre la profundidad del texto.

El autor ubica en una celda a dos hombres de diferentes extracciones sociales, políticas y sexuales, para confrontar la opresión, los prejuicios, la discriminación en un régimen dictatorial latinoamericano, al tiempo que explora la complejidad de las relaciones humanas.

La confrontación entre Molina, un diseñador de vidrieras, homosexual que se siente mujer, encarcelado con acusación de conducta impropia; y Valentín, heterosexual, marxista militante de una organización clandestina, revela el encuentro entre opuestos que genera un acercamiento de los opuestos; la influencia de las circunstancias en el comportamiento.

En este contexto de sexo y política, El Beso no es una historia de amor en un sentido romántico, pero sus ingredientes realzan las distintas formas del amor, la amistad y la complicidad.

El director Robert Presigiacomo ha realizado un montaje sobrio, sin pretensiones, que enfatiza precisamente texto y actuación. En el reducido espacio que permite este teatro semicircular, donde el público se acomoda alrededor de los actores, éstos gravitan en la celda que les ha tocado compartir, definida por la alambrada de púas que corona el escenario.

Dos camastros marcadamente diferenciados revelan cada personaje: el de Valentín está desnudo y sólo posee un libro; Molina tiene sobrecama de flecos, cojines y portaretratos. Una máscara blanca es el elemento unitario entre ambos ámbitos, la fantasía que va a sellar la relación cuando Molina inicie sus viajes al mundo cinematográfico para ahuyentar el tedio.

La escenografía resuelve los encuentros entre Molina y el carcelero, con una transparencia en un plano superior adonde acude el preso para resumir el diálogo mediante una grabación. El vestuario es correcto, dota a Molina de fantasía e irreverencia, y a Valentín de cierto desparpajo.

En la creación de un Molina divertido, tierno y sufrido, Tomás Milián revela una vez más su ductilidad interpretativa. El actor cubano-italiano, que ha trabajado en inglés gran parte de su carrera, parece buscar siempre papeles que representen un reto, y aquí lo encuentra. El amaneramiento y el patetismo de su personaje es sutil y sostenido, dando lugar a un delicioso careo entre la vulnerabilidad de Molina y la técnica de Milián. Su binterpretación, al desgaire, de una estrofa de un bolero (en español), es un detalle encantador del personaje.

Chaz Mena enfrenta con fuerza el personaje del revolucionario idealista lleno de dudas, encerrado con un homosexual delicado y soñador, que le muestra un aspecto de la vida desconocido para él (los mismos ingredientes que tuvo más tarde Fresa y Chocolate). Su actuación, plena de acciones lógicas, motivaciones y memoria emotiva, es un buen ejemplo del Método, además de que el joven actor posee vitalidad e intención dramática. Sus lágrimas caen ante los ojos de unos espectadores tan cercanos, que fisgonean hasta adentro de una bolsa de papel que éste abre.

La interrelación entre Milián y Mena, aún cuando existe una animosidad subterránea en los personajes, es total. Esto ayudó a superar la lentitud de los primeros momentos de la presentación del domingo. Tal parece que la obra necesita más ensayos para que fluya mejor; y la iluminación pudiera poner más énfasis en Molina, cuando éste se convierte en narrador de películas.

En cuanto a la escena clave de acercamiento entre los dos hombres, el director la resolvió de manera tan lúcida, comedida y precisa, que no se movió ni uno sólo de los cabellos blancos que poblaban la totalidad de los asientos en la matiné del domingo.

Un Universo Entre Rejas

From: El Nuevo Herald

Date: January 22, 1999

Author: Norma Niurka

"Dos personas completamente diferentes en términos políticos, humanos, sexuales, se encuentran en un calabozo y tienen que forjar una relación; no queda otro remedio que compartir ese espacio. Cuando empiezo a ver a este hombre como ser humano, cambia mi percepción de él y cambia el espacio. Lo que era antes un calabozo viene siendo ahora un universo".

Habla Chaz Mena, que interpreta al preso político Valentín, uno de los dos personajes de El beso de la mujer araña. La obra se estrena mañana viernes (en inglés), en el Encore Room, del Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Tomás Milián, la estrella del cine italiano y estadounidense, que vive en Miami Beach desde hace dos años, personifica a Molina, prisionero común confinado por homosexual, quien comparte su celda en una cárcel latinoamer??? ana.

El concepto de Mena sigue la pauta del desaparecido autor de El beso..., el argentino Manuel Puig, quien exploró las circunstancias que llevan a juntarse a dos seres opuestos, y sus consecuencias.

"La obra es una alegoría que se puede aplicar a cualquier conflicto, como por ejemplo el de irlandeses católicos y protestantes", dice Mena, de 32 años, en perfecto español. "No nos queda otro remedio que amarnos".

Mena es conocido aquí por su trabajo en teatro, cine, TV y anuncios comerciales. Ha actuado en Acme Theater, Florida Shakespeare Theater (cuando se llamaba FS Festival) y Area Stage Theater; ha intervenido en episodios de Miami Vice y Wise Guys; y en las cintas Miami Rapsody y Ace Ventura, filmadas aquí.

¿Quién puede decir que este muchacho bailador de son, que conversa en español hasta por los codos, usa palabras como "enjuto" y "forjar", y cita constantentemente a José Martí, nació en Nueva York, se crió en Miami y jamás ha visitado Cuba?

Pues sí, Chaz Mena es un actor "americano" que achaca su hispanización absoluta a la crianza de sus padres, y sus expresiones en castellano a la lectura.

"Siempre viví con mis padres en la sagüesera", apunta Mena, quien llegó a Miami a los seis años de edad, en 1972. "Desde que tengo uso de razón estoy oyendo hablar español, oyendo los cuentos de mi bisabuelo mambí que se hacían a la hora de comer. Oía de este lugar mágico que yo creía no tenía colores porque los retratos que me enseñaban siempre eran en blanco y negro".

A pesar de que el actor está en forma, se puso a dieta para rebajar de peso y, a las 6 de la mañana, se le ve correr por Coconut Grove, mucho antes de empezar los ensayos diarios.

"El personaje debe ser más delgado que yo; quisiera estar enjuto, si pudiera, por la referencia visual, es importante para la obra", explica. "Veo la actuación como un trabajo físico, no cerebral, cada vez que termino una obra, me pregunto cómo soy capaz de hacer las cosas que hace ese personaje".

Mena es un actor del método Stanislavsky, que dio su primera clase de teatro en el último año de la secundaria, en el Miami Senior High School, entusiasmado al ver trabajar a Jim Puig, actor miamense bastante conocido, que en ese momento era asistente de la profesora (también en esa escuela conoció a la que es su esposa desde hace dos años).

Estudió becado en la Universidad de Miami y se graduó de bachillerato en literatura inglesa de Barry University. Empezó a trabajar como profesional en 1988, y sacó una maestría en teatro del Carnegie Mellon, de Pittsburgh, donde estudió con profesores invitados del Teatro de Arte de Moscú, quienes le facilitaron estudiar en esa prestigiosa institución rusa, de 1995 a 1996.

"En Rusia, las artes siempre fueron ayudadas por el gobierno y, desafortunadamente, el arte tenía que ser servicial al gobierno, ayudar en el adoctrinamiento", explica. "Eso lo sé por colegas rusos que me contaban cómo ellos mismos hacían obras de realismo socialista, que odiaban, pero que tenían que hacer. Entonces, cuando yo estuve allá, los teatros ya se tenían que sostener por ellos mismos, y estaban haciendo obras baratas, casi pornográficas".

El joven actor piensa que, en la actualidad, la comercialización del teatro es extensiva al mundo entero.

"Cuando un actor tiene sólo dos semanas para ensayar una obra es porque hay que poner una y después otra, y vender boletos", dice. "Yo creo que el actor es un artesano, si soy muy bueno algun día me llamarán artista, pero no me gusta cómo se usa la palabra artista. Se puede tratar de vivir del arte, pero es difícil ser un artista".

Hace dos años, sintió que estaba repitiéndose en sus personajes y desviando sus metas artísticas. Marchó con su esposa a Nueva York en busca de otros aires, pero siguió viajando entre una y otra ciudad. Aquí lleva un tiempo con los avatares de El beso...

La pieza se estaba ensayando en Area Stage y el local se vio obligado a cerrar. Cuando Arnold Mittelman, director del CGP, quien se hallaba gestionando los derechos de la obra, y se enteró de que ese grupo los tenía, propuso montarla en su teatro. Más tarde, hubo que posponer nuevamente el estreno porque la renovación del Encore Room no estuvo a tiempo.

"Esta es una oportunidad de expresar la opresión en todas las culturas", señala Mittelman. "Aunque el sentido de opresión que la obra dramatiza se siente más en Latinoamérica, la realidad es que la popularidad que ha tenido la obra en todas partes señala que el tema es universal".

Chaz Mena quisiera que el público acudiera a ver la pieza por una razón muy particular: "Me interesa que por un rato se congregue un grupo de personas para pasar un buen rato, pero también para celebrar todo lo que es humano".

José Martí at NCU, ACTOR PRESENTS DIALOGUE WITH JOSÉ MARTÍ

by Sara Weist, Co-Editor
Daily Tar Heel

Chaz Mena, an actor from Florida, came to UNC on Nov. 17 to perform a short theatrical work about the life of José Martí.

Cuban intellectual José Martí (1853-1895) is most famous for his works of literature, his diplomatic endeavors and his role in the fight for Cuban independence from Spain. "He's like an uncle, like a member of the family, he's always there," Mena said. "You just can't get rid of him. He's always there; he's always present." Mena's presentation was in the Chatauque style, which is a dramatic attempt to represent a historical figure outside the context of a specific scene. This Chatauqua work was in the form of a conversation between the audience and the historical figure Martí. Kathy Ibarra, a UNC junior, said she liked the Chatauqua style. "It made it possible to speak with a historical figure that no one from our generation will ever be able to talk to," she said. "I am studying abroad in Cuba in the spring, so for me this was an awesome opportunity because Martí is a very important figure in Cuban culture." In the presentation, Mena spoke about the all aspects of Martí's life, both personal and political. "The Spanish say that in Cuba we are bitter," Mena said. "We are not bitter; we are dying." Mena also spoke about Martí's family life. "I was married, but my wife has since left me and returned to Cuba," he said. "But sometimes in the mornings, I feel something, and I know that what I am feeling is that my son is going to wake up." Mena is traveling throughout the country presenting his work, and he said he was especially looking forward to coming to UNC. "I was really excited about coming to UNC, more that anything because of what I had learned about Louis Pérez and the work that he is doing here," Mena said. Pérez is a history professor and director of the Latin American Studies program. His research focuses mostly on the history of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean during the 19th and 20th centuries. Pérez, who also attended the performance, said he was happy with how things had gone and he thought it is important for more people to learn about the life of José Martí. "I want everyone to read Martí's works," he said. "He is a central figure in the history of Latin America."