Christiana Molldrem Harkulich

Christiana Molldrem Harkulich

10/28/2012

Response 2:

1)Daniel writes that “barbarism is in the eyes of the beholder.” Is the mirror itself a European lens/object through/in which Palca sees herself as the Spanish see her? What does the mirror reflect? A new (colonized) subject in formation? Alterity? My own theorizing leans toward Latin American ideas of coloniality and the possibilities of rethinking Europe from an American positionality. I think such a rethinking might be very useful for a US production, such as the one being planned for Florida. In that case, might the mirror be considered a transculturative tool for the creation of a different subjectivity? If so, what might it actually reveal to Palca?

2) How does the other “gift,” the bell, fit into the play, its analysis, and its staging? Why does one object engage us so much that we neglect the other? How might the bell be used in performance as counterpoint to and/or complement of the mirror?

3) How might we use the mirror to stage the context of encounter and create a new context for engaging critically with the encounter?

2) There are two gifts given to Palca, the gift of a vision of herself through the mirror (as well as the mirror itself) and the adornment of bells. The staging, I think, is important to the analysis: the mirror is something in which Palca can see herself, but the audience can only see her reaction. She is given a view of herself through the European/Colonizer/Conqueror lens of the mirror, and it is something that only has power over the person who sees it. When it is played upon a stage; only the actress will be able to see the image produced. We, as audience, are only able to see her reaction (how the mirror acts upon her) not what it actually does. It is a private transaction with a public reception. The mirror’s action is ephemeral and moves on, haunting only Palca’s opinion of herself.

After she is frightened by her vision, Colombus presents her some bells. Both of these gifts are sensuous, the mirror is received through sight and the bells are received through hearing. The bells can be heard by everyone, and in a sensuous way they run counterpoint to the reception of the mirror because of their public interaction. There is also the idea, that the sound of the bells becomes part of Palca’s presence. When you hear the bells, you can hear the interaction, which gives the gift of bells a more lasting presence in the play.

The two gifts can be analyzed as the parts of the indigenous America that was viewed through a colonizing eye, but their sounds (represented in the bells) can haunt the scenes. In staging the play as a whole, after the gift of the bells the moment can be recalled by ringing the bells which need not happen on stage. The sounds can haunt and remind the audience’s memory of the moment of contact. The bells, which can be rung by Palca at her will, have a more direct agency than the mirror. So perhaps the two objects complement and complicate each other in their reminding of the moment of conquest.