Performing the Mulatto Paradox in Arriví's Vejigantes

This study offers a new reading of the opening act of Francisco Arriví's Vejigantes — the Loíza Aldea festival sequence. It analyzes the means by which the matriarch protagonist, Toña, employs a gamut of eroticizing tools in a dance performance for a host of onlookers in a paradoxical self-focalization that incites a violent sexual union. In pointing to the language in the stage directions and dialogue that highlight the mulata's calculated performance, I examine how Toña's seemingly inconsistent conduct can be read as an exploration in to Puerto Rico's deeply-rooted mulatto complex.