Ms. Guzmán, ... has performed as the Virgin seven times.She said that she had sung all over the world, most recently appearing with Plácido Domingo in the Los Angeles Opera’s “Luisa Fernanda” last summer, but that only after a performance as the Virgin of Guadalupe have people wanted to touch her. It made her so uncomfortable, she said, that she now removes her mantle to take her bows to make sure there’s no confusion.
“It’s the most surreal event,” she said.
Surreal, yes, for her. But for the viewers more than surreal. More like really real. They don't think they're actually touching the Virgen, but they're surely doing more than touching a symbol. It gets them closer to the Virgen. They're touching something real. Not the Virgen, but not not the Virgen. Perhaps one could describe it as touching her touch.
I think it's an illustration of the continuum of transubstantiation I waxed lyrical about in my closing thoughts on Religion & Theater.
PS This post produced an exciting exchange with Guzman herself! I've taken out one posting, which named names; here's the upshot:
Hearing from you because of my blog is like getting a rose at Dios Inantzin without even being able to be there! Thank you so much for your beautiful account. It's wonderful to hear more about what you were feeling, and to sense the rightness of Valenzuela's having you form the hinge as the fourth wall opened (to mix metaphors). It shows how complex but also how rich the interpenetration of performer and role - and religious object - in religious drama can be...
I should perhaps explain that my friend C and I are nearing the end of a semester-long team-taught course called "Religion & Theater" at Eugene Lang College, part of the New School in New York City. (C's an actor and director; I'm in religious studies.) Through readings of plays and theoretical texts from religious studies, acting exercises, improv and discussion we have been exploring the ways in which theatrical performances are and are not like religious ones. It's a suggestive topic (more like a world of topics), very hard to address at any level but platitudes: the "vocation" of the actor, the "sacred space" created by the fourth wall, the "drama" of liturgy, the "communitas" which theatrical performances as well as religious observances offer performers and viewers, etc. - even as actor training bristles with religious ideas from yoga to shamanism to transubstantiation! Would you mind if we shared your reflections with our students?
