PRODUCTION ARCHIVES
MARISOL
Black Box - November 13-16, 20-23, 2008
DRAMATURG'S NOTES
Magic realism is a style widely associated with and inspired by Latin American
culture, which is suffused with spirituality. Folk tales and parables are germane
to the culture deeply rooted in spiritual traditions, where the events of any
given day occur under the watchful eyes of saints and angels. Jose Rivera, who
was born in Puerto Rico but moved to the United States at a young age, lends
traces of his culture's spirituality to his writing. As Rivera studied with Gabr’el
Garcia Marquez, perhaps the most well-known magic realist of them all, one
might assume Rivera's Marisol falls neatly into the same genre. Indeed, Marisol
contains strong, spiritual influences and patches of the fantastic interwoven
with threads of the ordinary, a classic quality of magic realism.
The line between the ordinary and the extraordinary, however, is not so easily
identified. Marisol, together with the audience, becomes horrified by the
nightmarish transformation of New York City into a hotbed of persecution
and violence, generating a world of impoverishment and homelessness. Still,
recognizable elements of our daily life remain, and it is these elements, so
starkly contrasted with the fantastic, that prove to be the most evocative.
Something as simple as a fire hydrant, emerging as a beacon of the familiar
in a barren, alien landscape, becomes a powerful symbol of human suffering
when its spiritual significance is revealed.
Much of Marisol's spirituality is tied to traditional Christian mythology. The
religious iconography has been transformed, however; twisted and unraveled,
challenged and obfuscated, it becomes part of Rivera's apocalyptic world.
As the story grows increasingly unbelievable, it takes a greater commitment
on the part of the observer to find the underlying bits of conventional reality.
Marisol's faith is similarly tested as she witnesses a war between God and his
angels, hours after she braves a terrifying ride home on the subway. These two
events, common physical violence and dazzling supernatural warfare, coincide
easily in the world Rivera creates, in which the magic and the mundane
reveal themselves concurrently. The supernatural tinge to the story colors
our perception of the play, allowing us to see beyond the grim reality and
compelling us to create a more lustrous, hopeful version of our own.
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