Reinterpreting Malinche
Malinche's Fire
Written by Beatriz Copello and developed by the Malinche Project's Artistic Team
Showing at the Fairfield School of Arts, March 14-15. Ph 9559 2973.
Review by Francesca Davis
Malinche's Fire is a magic realist play about Latinas, myths, love and survival. The challenges facing women throughout the centuries are told through the characters of Maria Teresa, a woman whose husband leaves her after she devotes 25 years to him and her family, and La Malinche, an infamous indigenous woman renowned in Mexican history for betraying her people to help the Spanish in 1519.
Latin American myths and stories are used to present a new feminist reading of the infamous Malinche.
Malinche becomes more than a historical figure, however. She represents the timeless spirit of women's struggles and visits Maria Teresa in her sadness to help her.
Stories about the time when women were strong, had drive and were creators of the universe are used as a backdrop for Maria Teresa to find the strength to redefine herself.
At different points, Maria Teresa's grandmother appears to comfort her, and a young friend, Alicia, leads Maria Teresa to forget her pain momentarily through wild dancing. Neither of these relationships are without tension, as the play later reveals, however.
The script is half in Spanish, half in English, which gives the characters authenticity and preserves some cultural feeling but does create some problems.
Myths recounted in Spanish are simultaneously translated by a narrator into English but are very hard to hear. Consequently, some of the analogies and comments on how women's roles have been defined are lost to English speakers.
Also, while the play was obviously written as an interweaving of many women's stories, this means sometimes it doesn't hang together very well.
Maria Teresa's transformation into a "strong" woman seems to happen rather quickly and not very credibly. Alicia's pain at leaving her country as a child against her will is not explored. This is partly because the play drifts into other stories without spending the time to relate them to each other or develop them fully.
The first part of the play also drags a little as the spirits of Malinche, La Poeta and Maria Teresa's grandmother drift around the unhappy Maria Teresa's room. Sometimes the magic doesn't sit easily with the realism.
Visually, the play was interesting, drawing heavily on symbolism. La Poeta, who seems also to represent the spirit of Malinche, is portrayed as a kind of Earth mother spirit eating fruit, telling the mythical stories and dressed in a white shift. Malinche the historical figure carries herbs, chillies and a pail of water. The grandmother brings in some mortars and pestles.
Throughout the play the fruit, herbs and pestles are passed across the three women, linking them together in time and space. Continuity between the women is also kept through the use of white.
The play is the coming together of a process of workshopping that has involved more than 40 Latinas over three months. The script incorporates pieces written by several women in that process.
Although the play was interesting, it seemed to raise many more issues and stories than it chose to develop, and I found this frustrating. But as a vehicle for Latin American women in Sydney and Wollongong seeking to articulate their spirit and history, it has obviously been invaluable and is worth seeing.