“Marisol” is about a young, naïve woman who relatively has her life figured out. She goes to work, keeps her head down, and goes home. Her current reality is a place where apples and coffee are extinct while cows produce salty milk. She tries to hide her religion and culture from the people in her life so that she can fit in. Then suddenly, she was attacked by some supposedly crazy man with a golf club on a subway train who is going on and on about angels and the end of the world. She manages to escape but not without being infected with the mass hysteria. I believe this is when Marisol begins to slip through a different reality. There is a theory of alternate realities which indicates that there is a thin fabric of reality similar to our own but each reality branches off and continues on another path based on decisions made in our life. Since there is a war between God and the angels then it is possible with the death of the angels that other realities can tear and bleed into each other. I believe this is what happened to Marisol on the subway. I believe she slipped into her own alternate reality where she actually died on the subway. Therefore, as more and more angels perish, the more alternate and surreal her reality becomes. The confusion that she experiences further indicates that this isn’t her world anymore. When she is confronted with the reality that God is old and doesn’t care about Earth as well as an angel uprising, she refuses to believe that she can take care of herself without aide from God. Her codependence on God and the belief that he will take care of her further cripples her ability to take care of herself like a child not ready to grow up. However, despite the confusion she experiences, Marisol manages to become more independent and sympathetic to those around her. She also manages to retain focus on finding June, finding answers about God, and caring for Lenny. She doesn’t lose herself in the chaos of the world and towards the end of the play she finally accepts her fate.
Themes
The central theme of this play is the journey to salvation as well as freedom from the prisons we create in our mind. In present day New York, there are people who are kidnapped and tortured because of their credit card debt which similar to our world, presently. The apathy for a dying man on the street is irrelevant to someone who gone over their credit limit. It is more important to worry about being chained by debt rather than the homeless that line the streets. The world is being punished for its crimes against humanity and the punishment is pestilence. Everyone becomes infected with fear and mass hysteria. This is probably how apples and coffee became extinct, seemingly common food sources that are taken for granted are gone. The religious implications of the extinct apples relates to original sin, which everyone is born damned or a sinner. There is no way to escape it because we are infected by it from the beginning, even the angels need salvation. Humans are seen as the plague of the world and in Marisol, the homeless are seen as the plague of the world. In a way, humanity has lost its humanity because we look the other way rather than face our problems head on. As a result, it is the beginning of the end of days and all that matters is who will survive and find their hope again. People need to let go of their fears and focus on what is most important like bravery and altruism. The next important theme of this play is freedom. It is freedom from fear and paranoia for example it was announced over the PA to not trust anyone. People imprison themselves from really living because they live in fear and paranoia. The fear of not being accepted by others or being paranoid that the ones closest to us will betray us which is seen a lot in this play. But, even after a betrayal, is it possible to receive forgiveness?
Others themes in Marisol include consumerism, irony, desire, and the end of days. Another major problem with the world is consumerism, which dictates that we can never have enough. The credit card debt is a contributing factor of consumerism. Credit cards leave us with a false sense of security until we are bound to them and yet it keeps us consuming more and more. In addition, the roaches in Marisol and June’s apartment represent consumerism as well. The irony is not only did it bring a sense of security but it made people targets for the Neo-Nazis. Another sense of irony is between Marisol and the lady with the fur coat. In a way, Marisol had become the man with the golf club and the lady in the fur coat had become Marisol. After what Marisol had been through the woman seemed crazy for not believing her. Religion is also a major theme of this play because it affects almost every scene. When Marisol was a young girl and she was being chased from school, her angel turned them into pillars of salt. Then, there was the woman who mistaken Marisol for her boyfriend’s girlfriend and she was turned into salt. The golden crown that floats above the stage evokes the sense of a unseeing presence like God and the Angels. As I wrote earlier, in the beginning of Act I, the world had become infected in a sense and towards the end of Act I, Marisol finally accepts the war has begun. Chaos and confusion take to the streets as well as the war of angels above. As more and more of them die, the more surreal life on Earth becomes. It also plays into the duality of the wars on Earth and in Heaven. Everyone is fighting each other and trying to survive while above them angels die trying to save the world below.