The Mask Of Malinaltepec: 100 Years

A Play in Three Acts

The Mask Of Malinaltepec at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico (author).

Cast of Characters

The Mask
Marina, The Reporter
The Scientist
The Academics
Porfirio Aguirre
The Curator
The Security Guard

Scene:

National Museum of Anthropology.

Time:

The Opening day.

Act I

Scene 1

Setting

The museum hasn´t opened to the public yet. Marina, The Reporter follows the security guard through some of the still-sleeping objects, and others, between yawns, are greeting their neighbor’s good morning. She hears the Piedra del Sol from the Mexica room waking up in all its splendor. She makes it to the Culturas de Occidente´s room. The security guard stops and points to the glass showcase. No ceremonious introduction of the Malinaltepec´s mask.

THE MASK

(Exasperated sight)

Lights are not even on, and people are coming to annoy me. Go ahead, do your questions?

MARINA, THE REPORTER

(Approaches the display hesitating to introduce herself)

My name is Marina. I am a reporter from UNAM University´s magazine. I am here for the 100th anniversary, it is going to come up in the November issue.

THE MASK

(Lets out a groan and answers with indifference)

Again? Is it that you reporters can´t see the other thousands of objects here? I bet they have better stories to tell.

MARINA, THE REPORTER

(Afraid of speaking, she wasn't supposed to be the person who did the interview, but she knows family of the Archaeologist who discovered it so the magazine thought it would be a good idea).

I…I am sorry, I know it is an important day, and you must be busy preparing for the event. If you don´t mind I have a couple of questions about what this past century meant for you?

THE MASK

What is this time? If I missed the underworld? The name of the person they found me with. What is on my face: snakes or butterflies? Where was I made? Am I planning on going back to the lab for more research?

(The Mask pauses and breaths heavily)

I think I have answered all these before, and I have no interest in repeating myself anymore.

(Marina takes a couple of steps back from the display. Whispers from the other objects in the room surround the scene. In the back they hear some chatting in extinct dialects, and some speak Spanish with a trace of seseo).

MARINA, THE REPORTER

How did your afterlife become so miserable?

(She speaks without thinking, starts feeling dizzy, it is like her questions slipped through her fingers and ran away and left a sharp knife instead of a sharp pen.) 

THE MASK

 (Shows a false disdain)

Under the bright lights and inquisitive eyes of thousands of people every day.

In a never ending stream of languages I never meant to learn and yet can't understand.

Faces I was never supposed to see.

Continuously asking Who am I?

Where did I come from?

What is my meaning?

In this purgatory to which I have been confined for abandoning my post.

Having no agency of my past and future makes me a sinner?

I am living now the punishment by constantly enquiring what I am meant to do with this absurd resurrection.

Is because of this so-called fame my prize for defeating death?

A fame that like cotton candy vanishes after the first sweet taste.

Miserable as if I was the living dead.

But I…

I am life after death.

(THE MASK starts laughing hysterically)

(Lights on stage are turned off)

Act II

Scene 1

Setting

The scene takes place in several locations. First, we see Mexican archaeologist Porfirio Aguirre struggling to pull The Mask from a funerary mound in Malinaltepec, Guerrero, Mexico. Porfirio finally takes it off and lifts it triumphantly in the air, at the same time a scream of agony echoes through the valley. He starts walking and passes it on to a pair of hands in the dark. Lights turn off for Porfirio and now the spotlight follows several people dressed up in white lab coats and gloves, THE MASK is placed under microscopes and x-rays. One of the scientists passes on to a person wearing the National Museum of Anthropology uniform, the light turns off. The museum worker places it in a display case and leaves the stage. Academics Sofia Marinez del Campo Lanz and Paul Schmidt Schoenberg start discussing their different interpretations of The Mask´s meaning.

(A screen drops down the centre of the stage. An image of The Mask is projected onto it. Hands are handling it left and right.)

THE MASK

(Fear in its voice, crying, cursing and forcing itself out of the hands that handle it)

Who are you?

No. No. What are you doing? No. I need to go back to my lady, she needs me, she can be in the after life without me.

What are you saying, I can´t understand you.

TAKE THAT OUT OF ME!! STOP TOUCHING MY MOSAIC YOU ARE GOING TO DAMAGE IT.

Can you see you are hurting me?!

What have I done to deserve this torture?!

(Defeated tone)

Please put me back to where you found me.

I beg you good sir, I have given up light. I am at peace with darkness.

I beg you good sir, I am not meant to serve fake gods, only my Goddess of Water.

I beg you good sir, my face shall not be recognized by anyone but my risen-to-deity lady.

(Blackout)

(Lights turn on. Porfirio Aguirre, the Scientists, the Museum Worker, Sofia Marinez del Campo Lanz and Paul Schmidt Schoenberg are now standing around The Mask’s case.)

THE MASK

I swore to protect her.

I swore to spend the afterlife with her.

And what is that I have done?

I parade and show off, as if I was born to be wrapped by the calming veil of blackness.

How not to succumb to the warm embrace of fame.

From serving the gods to becoming one.

From not being heard of to being on everyone's lips.

You see, the trick is to remain mysteriously silent,

to keep them guessing until they believe they know who you are,

let them fight for an ambiguous reality.

36,525 times that the sun has risen and settled down, 1,240 new moons later.

I realized, after all that silence.

I have not listened to my name again.

I have lost track of my land.

I do not remember her face. 

(Blackout)

Act III

Scene 1

Setting

Back to the museum that now shows all the decorations for the 100th anniversary of The Mask´s finding. Marina, The reporter, is looking furiously at the case. She would make a revelation that would help The mask rethink how it views itself. The stage starts slowly filling out with people.

MARINA, THE REPORTER

(Fiery tone)

Is this a deserving sentence then? Indulging in the pleasure of this life, trying to suffocate the regrets of a failed past.

Are you a masochist, Mask of Malinaltepec?

What could you have done? How could you have prevented Porfirio from taking you from the ashes?

These yokes of guilt embedded in you by the profane hands that were looking to create a past to belong and not to know you, are the ones who have to carry this penance. At what point are you going to understand: You are not what they made of you.

(Diming lights fill the stage, the rest of the scenography is revealed)

(Marina, the reporter takes some steps forward until she faces it. It was the first time both locked eyes. Some murmuring voices start filling out the museum's exhibition room.)

THE MASK

(Quietly crying)

I remember her face.

Her cold skin against the warmth of my stone.

I can still hear the soft crying of those who lost her.

The copal burning deep into my nose.

(the conversations become louder)

I know I can´t do anything to erase the past that torments me. I was helpless at the time of my usurpation. What brings me most sorrow is the bitterness of thinking how this life will be of loneliness, every day more distant from who I was, further from her.

(The curator is on his way. Marina knows her time has run up.)

MARINA, THE REPORTER

Maybe it is time to start thinking about who you are now, not who you were.

Maybe this is not the afterlife for you

Maybe this is the life you are meant to have, and you have every right to make a good one for yourself.

(She pauses. Tears running down her cheeks)

I know my grandfather intended for you to live with the respect and greatness you deserve. You have every right to write your own story, I hope you know that.

(The room is full of people; cheerful conversations can be heard from all over. The Curator is getting closer to Marina, The reporter.)

MARINA, THE REPORTER

You are not living after death, you just continue living.

(Marina exits the stage)

CURATOR

(Angry tone)

What were you talking about?

THE MASK

(tearfully)

The future.

Ana Osuna Ruiz is currently a student on the MA Museum Studies programme at the University of Leicester. This piece was submitted for our Museums and Knowledge module, in which we are encouraged to challenge conventional modes of knowledge creation. We hope you have enjoyed something a little different from our usual programming!