Overview

Owen Shorter, professional journalist, and Mara Hill, well known lady novelist, discover at the beginning of the play that they have been sent to Cuba to write for rival color supplements. We follow their progress, together with Ed, an author from Illinois, and their guide, Angel, on their fact finding mission, as they do the obligatory rounds of official visits to sugar cane processing plants, new towns and other industrial show pieces. Michael Frayn shows how their impressions of the country are colored by their emotional reactions to the heat, the bad food and the difficulties of writing their stories but mainly determined, in the case of the men, by their respective successes with Mara, who plays havoc with their feelings. The relationship between Owen and Mara is at first riddled with rivalry and suspicion, but finally mellows into an uneasy romance.