Word: tania
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...closest thing to a real character in the play is, of course. Tania, particularly in the second act when her personality receives some relatively extended scrutiny and she is allowed to indulge briefly in what she herself calls "bourgeois introspection." Here we get a glimpse of the fears, the isolation, the stifled doubts that flesh out an otherwise two-dimensional character who always seems to be singing cheerfully about fighting "imperialismo." Working as a spy in Europe and Latin America. Tania adopts a succession of bourgeois identities--including one that she describes as "a cross between Sophia Loren and Minnie...
...when Tania awakes from her nightmare, she is her own self again, or rather non-self. "Dreams...." she scoffs, "what can I do about my dreams? I'll get rid of my fears in them." She has rejoined--at least psychologically--the other characters in the play, all to a certain extent interchangeable, all serving as illustrations of a quotation from Che that is printed in the program: "For the authentic revolutionaries there is no life outside the revolution...
...Part of Tania's denial of her individuality is a denial of her womanhood. She is a woman and a revolutionary, but obviously a revolutionary first. Despite a passing reference to the "infamous Latin American disease of machismo," Klein's script gives little attention to the position of women in the revolution. It is assumed that women will fight alongside men, and when a team of women workers outdoes the men's team, they shout triumphantly "Viva las mujeres!" But it is also assumed that after a hard day's fighting in the jungle the women will do the cooking...
...Tania and her fellow revolutionaries, selflessness and collectivism serve a definite purpose--it is the only way for them to live under the constant threat of death. Not only do they themselves gain a kind of immortality--no matter what happens, their spirit will live on in the revolution--but they can also find consolation for the death of their friends. "We must take time to weep for our fallen comrades," Che tells the troops, adding pointedly. "While we sharpen our machetes." And when, all the end of the play. Tania and Che themselves fall victims to the enemy...
What follows from that statement is that these revolutionaries have been only technically alive, and characters that are only technically alive make for a fairly dead play. Tania does have moments of true vivacity, however, and these moments usually come--not surprisingly--when the cast is acting as a collective entity. When they sing "Que linda es Cuba" or chant "El pueblo--unido--jamas sera vencido" with what looks like genuine revolutionary fervor, they manage to capture some of the warm communal feeling that you might experience at a revolutionary summer camp, or, more likely, at a demonstration...