Editing Setebos (section)

=== In theater ===

[[File:Joseph Urban Setebos.jpg|thumb|Figure 2. [[Joseph Urban|Joseph Urban's]] design for “The Cave of Setebos” showing Ariel imprisoned by Setebos.]]

====''Caliban by the Yellow Sands''====

To commemorate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 1916, New York City commissioned [[Percy MacKaye]] to create a theatrical experience for the community based on Shakespeare's work. The result, ''[[Caliban by the Yellow Sands]]'', required about 30 professional actors for the speaking roles and about 2500 mute participants for the pantomimes.<ref>The play's title comes from the first lines of a song sung by Ariel in ''The Tempest'', I.II.425: "Come unto these yellow sands, / And then take hands". The same lines were set to music in an Act I song of [[Arthur Sullivan|Arthur Sullivan's]] [[The Tempest (Sullivan)|incidental music to ''The Tempest'']].</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Vaughan |first=Virginia Mason |date=2011 |title=The Tempest |url= |location=Manchester |publisher=Manchester University Press |page=65 |isbn=9780719073120}}</ref>

MacKaye described the opening scene:<ref name=MacKaye1916>{{cite book |last=MacKaye |first=Percy |date=1916 |title= Caliban by the yellow sands |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/16009151/ |location=Garden City, New York |publisher=[[Doubleday, Page & Company]] |page=3}}</ref> 
<blockquote>
The scene is the cave of SETEBOS, whose stark-colored idol — half tiger and half toad — colossal and primitive — rises at centre above a stone altar.

On the right, the cave leads inward to the abode of SYCORAX; on the left, it leads outward to the sea, a  blue-green glimpse of which is vaguely visible.

High in the tiger-jaws of the idol, ARIEL — a slim, winged figure, half nude — is held fettered.
</blockquote>
Miranda discovers the imprisoned Ariel; Prospero releases Ariel and his spirits, and together with Prospero they convert Setebos's cave into a theater and perform a pageant consisting of scenes from Shakespeare. The dramatic tension consists of a struggle for Caliban's soul, between the forces of darkness, represented by Setebos and his "priests" Lust, War and Death, and the forces of light, i.e. Prospero, Ariel and Miranda.<ref name=Cartelli>{{cite book |last=Cartelli |first=Thomas |date=1999 |title=Repositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations |publisher=Routledge}}</ref>
 
Judging from the program of the second (Boston) set of performances in 1917,<ref name=MacKaye1917>{{cite book |last=Mackaye |first=Percy |date=1917 |title=Program of the performances of "Caliban by the yellow sands" a community drama |url=https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:433044996$49b |location=Boston |publisher=Atlantic Printing Company}}</ref> as well as other contemporary accounts,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Collier |first=John |date=1 July 1916 |title=Caliban of the Yellow Sands |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6qEqAAAAMAAJ |journal=The Survey |volume=XXXVI |issue=14 |publisher=Survey Associated, Inc. |pages=343–350}}</ref>
<ref>{{cite journal |date=June 1916 |title=The Shakespeare Masque |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5VRAQAAMAAJ&q=setebos |journal=The Theatre |volume=XXIII |issue=184 |pages=386}}</ref> the role of Setebos was not a speaking one and Setebos was not portrayed via an actor. Rather, the "middle stage" (where the characters of ''The Tempest'' interacted) was dominated by a two-headed idol, "half tiger, half toad," representing Setebos. The frontispiece of MacKaye's ''Program'', shown here in Figure 2, displays an image of Setebos created by [[Joseph Urban]] for the New York performances; the caption is "The Cave of Setebos."

====''Cimbelino en la Patagonia''====

Mónica Maffía's<ref name=MM/> play was written for a 2022 performance by her [[Buenos Aires]] based theater company, ''Setebos''. It is described as "an eco-drama based on Shakespeare's [[Cymbeline]], set within the Tehuelche myth of the god/hero Setebos."<ref>{{cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=Cimbelino en la Patagonia |url=https://www.alternativateatral.com/obra78146-cimbelino-en-la-patagonia |website=Alternativa Teatral |access-date=11 February 2025}}</ref> The play was commissioned in connection with the ''Cymbeline in the Anthropocene'' project, described as "an international research-in-performance project which brings together seven theatre companies and environmentally committed productions from four continents."<ref>{{cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=Emancipating the Anthropocene: The Global Cymbeline Project |url=https://www.cymbeline-anthropocene.com/article/19311-emancipating-the-anthropocene-%C2%A0the-global-cymbeline-project |work=Cymbeline Anthropocene |location=Toronto, Ontario |publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Company]] |access-date= 11 February 2025}}</ref> The play was performed as part of the "Cymbeline in the Anthropocene" Festival.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cimbelino in la Patagonia |url=https://www.alternativateatral.com/obra78146-cimbelino-en-la-patagonia |website=Alternativa Teatral |access-date=11 February 2025}}</ref>

In a 2022 interview with the [[Canadian Broadcasting Company|CBC]],<ref name=MaffiaMartin/> Maffía said
<blockquote>
there’s a connexion through Caliban, which is where this adaptation of Cymbeline comes from for me, because Caliban prays to his god, which is Setebos. Researching who Setebos was, I found that [out] in Pigafetta’s chronicles of Magellan and the first [circum]navigation; and through those chronicles we learn that when [the Spanish] met the Tehuelches, [the latter] were very tall. And that in their funeral rites, they said that Setebos appeared, and with smaller “devils.” So Setebos is both a hero and a god-devil figure.
</blockquote>
In a separate interview in 2022,<ref>{{cite interview |last=Maffía |first=Mónica |interviewer=[[Nahlah Ayed]] |title=Cymbeline in the Anthropocene |work=CBC Ideas |publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Company]] |location=Toronto, Ontario |url=https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-shakespeare-s-strangest-play-helps-us-confront-the-climate-crisis-1.6574152 |date=September 7, 2022}}</ref> 
Maffía elaborated: Setebos, she said, was also
<blockquote>
the father of people who were the ancestral people of Patagonia who were Tehuelche, and in their tradition, animals are people. We know about that god, not usually through a connection with our myths, but through Shakespeare ... None of those who were my group of actors knew even the name Setebos. They immediately got philosophical about it. They turned down their voices and their souls began to speak. So I thought that’s an opportunity for me as a director and as a playwright to get people to know about these folktales that were traditional before Shakespeare.
</blockquote>

The action begins<ref>{{cite AV media |last=Maffía |first=Mónica |date=8 July 2022 |title=Performance: Cimbelino en la Patagonia (Setebos, Argentina) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8E3i-VQa3Y |trans-title=Performance: Cymbeline in Patagonia |format= |work=You Tube|language=Spanish |publisher=Cymbeline-Anthropocene |access-date=}}</ref> with actors arriving at a cabaña in [[El Chaltén]],  a small mountain village in [[Santa Cruz Province, Argentina|Santa Cruz Province]], [[Argentina]] that is supposedly the birthplace of the Tehuelche fire-god Setebos, creator of the region's people and wildlife. The actors gradually fall under the spell of the mountain. As the play progresses, each actor plays characters representing three states of being: contemporary Argentinian, Shakespearian, and Tehuelche human-animal. The lines between these states become blurred, until finally the characters metamorphose into avatars of the Setebos myth. Unlike in Shakespeare's play, the actors repeatedly invoke Setebos by name; for instance, the character Ínogen's touching “¡Setebos, me encomiendo a tu protección!” / “Setebos, I commend myself to your protection” before she goes to sleep. Near the end of the play, the story of the birth of Setebos and the Tehuelche people is presented  by the spiritually reborn actors wearing animal masks.