Mariposa
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This artist’s perverse, self-serving conception of political engagement is typical of a certain sector of the American art world, where national or international tragedy spawns little more than black-tie openings and glossy catalogs. How many critics have told us that the “good” thing about AIDS is the artistic renaissance (a particularly cruel term) it’s inspired? If a few hundred thousand U.S. deaths increase the value of a collector’s portfolio, those lives weren’t lost in vain; public policy takes a backseat to protecting one’s investments. Of course, the art world simply mimics the U.S. government, with its nasty habit of throwing financial and military support behind those repressive regimes that assure American businesses access to undeveloped markets. How else could China maintain its most-favored-nation status?
As morally bankrupt as much of the art world may be when it comes to politics, at least the art world often acknowledges that state-sanctioned atrocities happen and that we would do well to look at them. But Chicago playwright Jeffrey Lieber, in his new crisply written drama Mariposa, creates a truly unconscionable art world–and an equally unconscionable play–in which willful ignorance of America’s shameful interventionist abuses in Latin America is the key to unlocking creativity and selling out a show. Unimaginably, Lieber never criticizes this world, instead suggesting that historical amnesia is the key to artistic happiness.
The ultimate horror of Mariposa surfaces in its penultimate scene, when Sandino appears before Alisa (confirming that he’s not simply Peter’s corrupted projection but the true spirit of the historical man). Every time Alisa looks at Peter’s jungle paintings, she’s traumatized by the sounds of gunfire and images of war crimes. Sandino’s solution? Alisa must forget history too. Once she does–with astonishingly little effort–she sees a blissfully sanitized Nicaragua: small, clay-hut villages, an old man hunched over his rusty old car, naked children playing happily in the streets. With this conversion, Alisa’s critical role as eyewitness is neutralized, and the disinformation campaign is complete. Nicaragua is a jungle paradise where American government and military officials have never set foot. At last Alisa can look at Peter’s paintings without anguish. The work of art, even when it’s consciously founded on a massive suppression of knowledge, is what must be saved, despite millions of urgent voices silenced for its sake.
