José Rivera
José Rivera was born March 24, 1955 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the age of four his family moved to New York City. He grew up going through the New York City public school system and enjoyed watching television shows like The Twilight Zone. He has gone on to have a prolific career as a playwright and screen writer. He has won two Obie Awards for playwriting (Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot). He became the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Oscar (The Motorcycle Diaries). Rivera is known for writing in the style of Magical Realism, which is a style of writing depicting the world with a realistic lens while also adding elements of magic. This style aims to blur the lines of fantasy and reality. Rivera has based many of his plays on aspects of his own life.
Above: Photo from USC School of Dramatic Arts, by Craig Schwartz.
Below: Photo from University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
Featured Play: Marisol
A young, Puerto Rican named Marisol is a successful, middle-class woman living in the Bronx. After a few near-death experiences, her guardian Angel appears to Marisol and tells her that God is senile and killing the planet. The Angels are all leaving the people they protect to fight a war against God to bring in a better millenia and heal the planet. The Earth that Marisol inhabits is filled with skinhead nazis that burn the homeless, people over the credit limit are tortured or killed, rain burns the skin, and the moon that used to bring souls to heaven has disappeared to Saturn. Without her Angel, Marisol must survive the harsh realities of the world as the people go mad and the war for heaven tears apart the universe as we know it.
This play is perfect for students to reexamine the world around them in a way that distances them from societal issues because of the elements of magic. This gritty show can be viewed by audiences without triggering past or current traumas in a way that allows for an honest dialogue to be opened about the problems in the world today.
Sample Audience and Activity
This play discusses topics such as violence, racism, rape, antisemitism, poverty, climate change, gender roles, and religion. This play is best suited for a high school audience or older. High school students studying this play could use this to compare the societal issues that existed when the play was written in 1992 and what societal problems continue today. They could also note if any issues have been solved and if any new issues have risen.
Discussion Questions:
What societal problems that appear in Marisol still exist today?
How does magical realism aid in telling this story?
How does the confirmed existence of God and Angels in the world of this play affect how you view the events of the play?
Who is the true antagonist of the play?
Is Lenny worthy of compassion based on his character arc?
Annotated Plays
Cloud Tectonics:
On a fantastically rainy night in Los Angeles, the city of Angels, a plain Joe named Anibal de la Luna picks up and brings home with him a poor, bedraggled woman hitchhiker who calls herself Celestina del Sol. She is fifty-four years old, she says, and she has been pregnant two years. She is indeed a rare and heavenly creature, a mystic wanderer with no sense of time and an infinite capacity to love. Alone in his little house, sealed off from the wails of the decaying city outside, De la Luna and Del Sol come together, joining their bodies and their dreams.
This play can be used to examine society’s view on topics such as pregnancy (especially for older, single women) and the nuances of relationships (whether platonic or romantic).
Photo from: Christopher Scott Murillo Scenic Design; Photo Credit: Daren Scott
References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot:
A Cat and Coyote have philosophical conversations under a fiddle-playing moon-man in the deserts of Southern California. These are the happenings in the dreams (and at times, reality) of Gabriela who is struggling in her marriage with Benito, an army soldier. The Cat and Coyote animalize the struggles of marriage and how both time and occupation can change the relationships between people. Gabriela converses with the moon-man about the life she used to have and could have again if she and Benito were to not be together. This is a story of the wife and soldier told through a magical realism lens.
This play can be used to examine the struggles of long-distance romance and the “what if” questions that every human asks themselves. It also questions on how long we should stick it out in relationship before it is time to end it and how we adapt to changes and stresses on our interpersonal relationships.
Photo from Cara Mía Theatre; Photo Credit: Adolfo Cantú-Villarreal- TZOM Films
Comprehensive List of Plays
The House of Ramon Iglesia (1983)
The Promise (1988)
Each Day Dies With Sleep (1990)
Marisol (1992)
Tape (1993)
Flowers (1994)
Giants Have Us In Their Books (1997)
Cloud tectonics (1995)
Maricela De La Luz Lights The World
Godstuff
Adoration of the Old Woman
The Street of the Sun (1996)
Sueno (1998)
Lovers of Long Red Hair (2000)
References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot (2000)
Sonnets for an Old Century (2000)
School of the Americas (2006)
Massacre (Sing To Your Children) (2007)
Brainpeople (2008)
Boleros for the Disenchanted (2008) world premiere Yale Repertory Theatre
Human Emotional Process (2008) commissioned by McCarter Theatre
Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words (2010)
Golden (2010)
The Kiss of the Spider Woman (translation) (2010)
The Hours are Feminine (2011)
Lessons for an Unaccustomed Bride (2011)
The Book of Fishes (2011)
Written on my Face (2012)
Another Word for Beauty (2013)
The Last Book of Homer (2013)
The Garden of Tears and Kisses (2014)
Sermon for the Senses (2014)
Charlotte (2014)
Additional Resources
Selected Readings
Toward a Rhetoric of Sociospatial Theatre.pdfJoseRiveraInterview.pdfBibliography
Arkatov, Janice. “A Magical `Promise' From Playwright Jose Rivera: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times, 13 Feb. 1988, p. 9. ProQuest, proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/newspapers/magical-promise-playwright-jose-rivera/docview/292714729/se-2?accountid=12768.
Breslauer, Jan. “STAGE The Juggler Magic Realist Jose Rivera, Who Writes for Both Stage and TV, Likes to Keep Another Ball in the Air-the Latino Cultural Cause: [Home Edition].” Los Angeles Times, 6 Sept. 1992, p. 8. ProQuest, proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/newspapers/stage-juggler-magic-realist-jose-rivera-who/docview/281708098/se-2?accountid=12768.
“Jose Rivera.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 2020, www.imdb.com/name/nm1433580/#writer.
Rivera José. Cloud Tectonics. Broadway Play Publishing Inc, 2012.
Rivera José. References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot. Broadway Play Publishing Inc., 2012.
Rivera, Jose. Marisol. Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 1992.
Staff, Infoplease. “Obie Awards.” Infoplease, Infoplease, 11 Feb. 2017, www.infoplease.com/culture-entertainment/awards/performing-arts/obie-awards.
Thomas, Arden Elizabeth. “Poisoning the Mother/Land.” Theatre History Studies, vol. 35, Jan. 2016, pp. 143–160. ProQuest, search-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/docview/1845768625/CDA91FC319F24CC3PQ/1?accountid=12768.
Westgate, J. Chris. “A Voice Evolving Through Time: An Interview with Jose ́ Rivera.” Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 20, no. 1, 2010, pp. 87–119., www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486800903453053.
Westgate, J. Chris. “Toward a Rhetoric of Sociospatial Theatre: José Rivera's ‘Marisol.’” Theatre Journal, vol. 59, no. 1, Mar. 2007, pp. 21–37. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25069961.
Header Photo from: Goodman Theatre
Webpage information compiled by: Theo Blumstein (2021)