Dark Prisms: Occultism in Hispanic Drama by Robert Lima (review)

Book Reviews 377 essays reveals them as always reactive, yet soothed by a strongly held notion of fate. constantly recreating and reinventing their own image. LURANA DONNELS O'MALLEY, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'l AT MANOA ROBERT LIMA. Dark Prisms: Occultism in Hispanic Drama. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky 1995· Pp. 193· $29·95· This book is an informative and well-written introduction to occultism in Hispanic Drama. Its tille, as Lima suggests, is "meant to convey the passage of occult cultural icons from Hispanic life through the prism of drama," As the author indicates, most of the content of this book first appeared in a number of journals. The book is divided into three parts: Part One deals with the supernatural in Medieval Spanish Drama, the Esoterica in the Spanish Golden Age, and the Demonic Pact of European folklore and literature. In Part Two Lima discusses the occult in the theatre of twentieth-century Spanish playwrights. He examines the rich Galician folklore that penneates Ram6n del ValleInclan 's The Marquis ofBradomfn, The Bewitched: A Tragedy ofthe Lands ofSaints, Blood Pact: A Play for Silhouettes, Divine Words: A Village Tragicomedy. These works are replete with incantations, rituals, omens and magic. Next, Lima focuses on Federico Garcia Lorca's play, Yermo. In this work the protagonist , in her dramatic search to fulfil her desire to have children, fmds herself involved in an ancient Dionysian worship, with erotic dances symbolic of fertility. Her rejection of Dionysus' frenzied force of sexual surrender is punished with the death of her husband, eliminating the possibility of ever having a child. This is Lima's best study of pagan elements in a modem Spanish play. The next two contemporary Spanish dramatists included in Lima's book are Alejandro Casona and Domingo Miras. The demonic pact appears a a motif in Casona's The Boat without a Fisherman and The Devil Once More. In each play the protagonist is approached by the Devil and given a choice between failure and success. For Casona it is the individual himself who must purge the inner evil. Many supernatural events take place in Domingo Miras' The Illuminati ofthe Convent ofIncarnation and The Witches ofBarahona. Witches, possessed nuns, revelations, demons fill the scenes of these two plays. In the last pages of Part Two Lima examines the presence of African deities in Cuban and Brazilian Drama. The African lore was transmitted to the Americas by the slaves and became mixed with other European and Indian beliefs. The ancient gods are called Orishas in the Caribbean and Orixas in Brazil. Part Three contains a bibliography of Spanish and Latin American plays ass~iated with occultism. The infonnalion on the subject matter follows each play. My one reservation is that the Latin American component appears to be marginal both in Part Two and Part Three, disaffinning somewhat the title whose word "His- Book Reviews panic" may indicate a more proportionate treatment of both Spanish and Latin American Drama. In effect, only Cuban and Brazilian drama are discussed and in the bibliography of Part Three the list of plays dealing with the occult is also comparatively shor!. Nonetheless, Lima is to be applauded in presenting a very interesting view of mythological , religious, and arcane traditions that permeate Hispanic theatrical works from medieval times to the present, attesting to man's continuous belief in another realty that transcends his daily life. ERMINIO G. NEGLIA, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ...