Lorca's El Maleficio De La Mariposa

Lorca's El Maleficio De La Mariposa

Federico Garcia Lorca was a Spanish poet who explored universal themes

of love, lust, death and violence under the semblance of whimsical

tragedies. The self-proclaimed gay had fanciful reveries declaring his

almost child-like take on the chaotic conditions of his time. Although

disguised as nothing more than a dark fairy tale, Lorca's El Maleficio

De La Mariposa, like all his succeeding plays, is replete with

symbolism that is quite impossible to grasp for minds clouded over by

years of the world's sensibilities.

UP's Filipino translation of Lorca's earliest work was entitled Ang

Malupit na Encanto ng Mariposa. I found it puzzling that the actors

delivered English lines when the ticket said that the play was a

Filipino rendition. Besides, the title was in Filipino. My puzzlement

is not over the fact that it was translated at all. The original,

after all, would have been impossible for us to comprehend since it

was in Spanish. But why not in Filipino? Either way, it was

translated. Therefore, some of the scathingly disturbing images of

Lorca's dialogs may have been lost.

However, I do not think the play was in such a serious tone -sad, yes,

but not too high-brow and tight-lipped. It is amazing to think of how

a man like Lorca, who troubles himself with the endeavors and

tragedies of bugs and insects can be considered one of the greatest

poets of the 21st century. The play had the makings of a fairy tale

-what with animals thinking and contriving, a beetle obsessing over

love, and a beautiful butterfly collapsing into their care. It was

enough to make the little girl in me swoon with memories of childhood

dreams, and hope that the beetle, with his troubadourian serenades,

and the butterfly end up together. To add to this effect, the

production was very pretty. Seeing the play through the artistry of

Dulaang UP was a visual delight. The dainty lights overhead the

audience brought us into the enchantment of the beetles over finding a

butterfly in their midst. The choreography, too, moved the fantastic

mood along. I didn't know one could create a whole routine out of

beetles' and scorpions' scamperings.

But amid the loveliness of the set and choreography, I found a terror

in a tragedy that was still beautifully distressing. Here came out the

pain of a longing frustrated by conventions in the young boy beetle's

pining for a love he cannot have. Here is the brilliance of Lorca's

poetry, the way he combines fear (in the scorpions' menacing advances)

and pain (in the love that cannot be reciprocated) with beauty. That

was where my confusion comes in, where I appealed to symbolism to make