Editing Setebos (section)

====''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.