Marisol By Jose Rivera Essay

Marisol by José Rivera premiered in 1992 it is set in New York City at about the same time. They play starts out with Marisol almost being killed on a train by a madman wielding a golf club but she had an invisible protector. She lives in the Bronx surrounded by desperate people who are vocal about what they want; one neighbor begs for heat while another wants their boyfriend back. There are multiple examples of desertion in Marisol’s life from the people that she has met to the neighborhood she lives in. Marisol is about how a person deals with the fact that everything and everyone they have ever cared about can and will abandon them.
Marisol is set in the Bronx, a space where people have been forsaken to the point that the environment has taken on their characteristics. When Marisol gets back to her apartment she is bombarded with the shouting of her neighbors. One is asking for the heat, while another, Sandy, is yelling at an ex-boyfriend. Sandy screams, “Matthew? It’s Sandy! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. STOP HIDING FOR ME, YOU MALIGNANT FUCK!” (13). Sandy is shouting at a past boyfriend who has obviously left her, this sets a very clear scene that
She asks countless questions, like, “Why did the plague kill half of my friends?” (17). Referencing the AIDS epidemic that killed a generation of people, people who were abandoned by their family and friends because they had a disease which was associated with people who are gay. The admission of the disease forced people to come out when they weren’t ready in order to get the care that they needed. This “plague” ripped them of their privacy, and often took more than just that. Lastly, she asks, “Where did the moon go?” (17). The moon has been a constant reminder of where we are and what time it is. So much so that the absence of it causes concern and anxiety to the point of feeling lost with no sense of north or