Sotto Voce

by Nilo Cruz

“Exquisite, dreamlike… The poetry of Cruz’s writing is what those who love his work cite most often about his style, and Sotto Voce has that… It also contains passages that are realistic, whimsical, sensual and heartbreaking. Cruz may be that rarity, a poet of the stage, but he is first and foremost a dramatist.”
—Christine Dolen, Miami Herald

The millennium, New York City. Bemadette Kahn, an eighty-year-old German-born writer, spends her days in her apartment, trying to forget the past. Until Saquiel Rafaeli, a young Jewish-Cuban researcher, appears on her doorstep, forcing her to confront those haunted memories. He’s eager to learn about Bemadette’s long-lost lover, Ariel Strauss, who set sail in 1939 aboard the St. Louis , never to be seen again. With layered lyrical language and vibrant intimacy, Sotto Voce is an imaginative exploration of the power of memory, love and human connection.

Nilo Cruz is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Anna in the Tropics , as well as Beauty of the Father, Two Sisters and a Piano, Lorca in a Green Dress, Dancing on Her Knees, Night Train to Bolina and other works.

Genres: Plays, Drama

61 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2015

About the author

Cruz'z interest in theater began with acting and directing in the early 1980s. He studied theater first at Miami-Dade Community College, later moving to New York City, where Cruz studied under fellow Cuban María Irene Fornés. Fornes recommended Cruz to Paula Vogel who was teaching at Brown University where he would later receive his M.F.A. in 1994.

In 2001, Cruz served as the playwright-in-residence for the New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he wrote Anna in the Tropics. Rafael de Acha, produced and directed the world premier performance of Anna in the Tropics, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer and the Steinberg Award for Best New Play. A year later it received its Broadway premiere with Jimmy Smits in the lead role.

Some of the theatres that have developed and performed his works include New York's Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Pasadena Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, The Alliance, New Theatre, Florida Stage and the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Cruz wrote the book of the Frank Wildhorn-Jack Murphy musical Havana. Its scheduled world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse has been delayed by the theatre's declaration of bankruptcy in 2010

Cruz has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including two NEA/TCG National Theatre Artist Residency grants, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, San Francisco's W. Alton Jones award, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award and a USA Artist Fellowship.

Cruz is a frequent collaborator with Peruvian-American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. To date, they have completed a set of orchestral songs, La centinela y la paloma (The Keeper and the Dove), for soprano Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (premiered under the baton of Joana Carneiro in February 2011); The Saint Maker for soprano Jessica Rivera, mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and the Berkeley Symphony in May 2013; Journey of the Shadow for narrator and ensemble of eleven players (San Francisco Chamber Orchestra premiering in April 2013; the Conquest Requiem for soprano, baritone, orchestra, and chorus for the Houston Symphony under the baton of Andrés Orozco-Estrada in May 2017; and Cinco Lunas de Lorca (The Five Moons of Lorca) as a digital short for countertenor, choir, and piano for the Los Angeles Opera. They are currently working on The Last Dream of Frida, an opera for the San Diego Opera whose premiere has been delayed due to COVID-19.

Cruz penned the libretto to composer Jimmy López's opera Bel Canto which had its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on December 7, 2015.

Cruz's most recent work is Bathing in Moonlight, a world premiere featuring Raul Mendez, Priscilla Lopez, Hannia Guillen, Frankie J. Alvarez, Michael Rudko, and Katty Velasquez. Directed by Emily Mann (it has incorrectly been stated that Emily Mann directed the world premiere of Anna in the Tropics, the world premiere was directed by Rafael de Acha, artistic director of New Theatre, in Coral Gables, Florida. The following year, after being awarded the Pulitzer and Steinberg Awards, Emily Mann directed a production at the McCarter Theatre, which then was presented on Broadway.) Bathing in Moonlight ran September 9 - October 9, 2016, at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Bathing in Moonlight is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and a 2016 Greenfield Prize.

Cruz is an alumnus of New Dramatists and has taught playwriting at Brown University, the University of Iowa and at Yale University. He presently lives in New York City and Miami.

In 2009, Cruz received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.

In 2010, Cruz was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from Whittier College.

Reviews

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

My dear young man, you could have lied to me—
Sotto Voce ~~~ Nilo Cruz



Exquisitely written. Cruz maybe the most sensitive playwright we've heard from since the young Tennessee Williams.

Nilo Cruz's Sotto Voce , deals with memories, the holocaust, and the forgotten tragedy of 937 German Jewish refugees aboard the St. Louis who were turned away by Cuba, the United States and Canada, many of who would perish in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The action takes place in New York and Cuba in the year 2000 and in the waters off the coast of Cuba and Florida in 1939, just before the beginning of World War II.



Sotto Voce centers on three characters. Bemadette Kahn, a reclusive German-born novelist living in New York, a young-looking 80-year-old whose long-ago Jewish lover Ariel Strauss was a passenger on the St. Louis. Saquiel Rafaeli, a 28-year-old Jewish student from Cuba whose great aunt was a passenger on the St. Louis, and Lucila Pulpo, the young Colombian maid who takes care of the agoraphobic Bemadette, shields her and brings her what she needs from the outside world.



The play imagines an unusual 21st century relationship between Bemadette and Saquiel. Though the two never meet face to face, they establish a connection by phone and via email. Literature plays a key role in the spiritual communion between Bemadette and Saquiel, whose disembodied voice and healing attention awaken her dormant passion for writing. Sotto Voce also touches on war, loss, displacement, the lives of undocumented immigrants and more.

Cruz, a true poet, beautifully captures the imaginary streets of NYC, the streets of prewar Berlin, and life aboard the St Louis. His writing is amazing. Nilo Cruz has written an exquisite play of loss and love.

[Ana Camastro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sad I've only just discovered Nilo Cruz but elated that I have discovered him and his works. Every word touches me as if they were written for me.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the end of the night I slid into bed with this book and right away found myself where Saquiel, Lucila, and Ariel all stood, on the street looking at Bemadette. Now that I have this story stored in my memory banks I have the ability to eat olives alone and feel like I'm in love.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A central premise bursting with promise.