For the first time in years, Vanita Rae Smith has turned over the directing chores for the Readers' Theatre series at Army Community Theatre.

Smith — who has begun to direct in ACT's main stage season of big musicals — has deferred to Eden-Lee Murray to guide "Anna In the Tropics," by Nilo Cruz. Murray's major innovation is to eliminate the doubling up of roles that has made for some difficult listening in previous readings.

"Anna in the Tropics" offers seven large, distinct acting opportunities.

Cruz is a Cuban-born U.S. citizen and the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, awarded to him for this play in 2003. It is a deceptively simple, moody piece that uses Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" as the springboard for love and lust in a 1929 Florida cigar factory.

On the brink of mechanization, the family of cigar makers in the story follows traditional hand-rolling methods to produce their product. Also traditionally, the workers chip in to hire a lector to read to them to help pass the time and keep them mentally occupied.

Tom Holowach reads the part of Juan Julian, the new lector. In the morning, he reads from newspapers, then from the proletarian press, and lastly — at the end of the day — from the romantic novels most favored by the factory's women. Tolstoy's story of Anna, who risks the security of her marriage to carry on an affair, soon begins to dominate the minds of the workers.

Sylvia Hormann-Alper reads Ofelia, the wife and the money behind Santiago (Richard Pellett), the factory's owner. Their two daughters are the young and impetuous Marela (Karen Valasek) and the elder Conchita (read by director Murray), who is in a fading marriage to Palomo (Walter Eccles) and ready to take on a lover.

Richard Valasek reads the part of Santiago's half-brother while Jo Pruden narrates and takes on small incidental roles.

Literature becomes the catalyst in this piece and is recognized by the workers to be like alcohol — bringing out the best and the worst in those who consume it. Accordingly, the lector becomes a character bigger than life who must possess a strong voice, clarity of speech and — most important — the ability to read from the heart.

Inevitably, the passionate lector Juan and the thirsty wife Conchita are drawn to each other and risk the tragedy that must result from an affair that can't long be concealed. But when that tragedy strikes, it comes from an unexpected source.

These are big emotions, played out in a big way despite the limited microcosm of the setting. It is material more suited for the high emotion of grand opera and must be acceptably larger than life to be effective.

In ACT's version — which scales back the impact of a fully staged performance — plays instead as domestic melodrama. The characters become small, foolish people who behave instinctively but badly.

While it effectively creates a time and place that no longer exist, "Anna in the Tropics" plays without the stature expected from its Pulitzer status.