Let’s face it – until now there are skeptics questioning the veracity of the book “The Travels of Marco Polo“. It can be an issue of translation, an issue of condensing several accounts into a single book or a matter of perceived inaccuracy. Besides, the early days of sea navigation mean exploring into the unknown in an attempt to verify if the world is round.
I remember discussing how some films take artistic license to “improve” the story just like how I discussed it here in my review of Farinelli: Il Castrato. And it went far according to Farinelli’s biographers. Can the same conundrum be applied here when it’s the real Marco Polo himself that wrote most of these travels himself?
What did he not share?
If ever productions like Marco Polo The Musical became possible here in the Philippines, it is because of perceived events that he may have omitted from his stories. For all we know he may have almost stayed at Cathay after gaining the favor of Kublai Khan. But he returned to Venice only to find it conquered. This made sense upon seeing plugging paraphernalia displaying the full title “Marco Polo: An Untold Story” implying the events not mentioned.
Men are expected to have some affairs especially when they are not committed to anyone at the moment. On why Marco Polo did not mention these affairs in these books may be because of the newfound knowledge he earned that seemed suspicious to his Genoan captors. He could easily be suspected as a turncoat that became a spy for the foreign army.
By the way, the books that surfaced are not written by Marco Polo himself but by Rustichello di Pisa. He wrote the handbook for merchants first and eventually wrote about Marco Polo’s travels along the way. If you are going to teach some folks about things you have learned from a fellow prisoner who claimed to have learned all of these from a foreign land, you end up being told more than what you intend to write. Perhaps he just went “strictly business” and focused on the handbook written, the Practica della mercatura. Who knows if Marco Polo shared about the ill-fated love life that blossomed in Bukhara to Rustichello but the latter ignored it thinking “I can’t make money out of it”.
Capitalizing on the Gaps
I must say the root of most artistic licenses taken advantage of in fiction is the gaps existing between the pages of written history. In the same manner that we can no longer trace all of the women with whom Jose Rizal had dalliances with, we could not say either how close Marco Polo had gotten to Kublai Khan’s family. Remember that as emissary, he reported directly to the emperor meaning he could have talked to other members of the family including his daughters.
It was not meant to be a bad thing. Besides, history becomes extra interesting when some items not mentioned become subjects for deeper research. Also, Marco Polo and his crew are still seafarers after all. Think of the seamen that frequented ships today and you’d think of all that time they were at sea with no sex life.
Wait, what?
Pardon the detour but they’re still men after all with physiological needs. Some of the women they met may have remained flings or temporary affairs. Others ended up blossoming into true love. But in an era where marriage is for political maneuvering instead of an act of love, even the most romantic love story could end in heartbreak.
The legacy Marco Polo may have left can be attributed more to global navigation – a foray into exploration to new worlds giving inspiration to explorers like Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan to circumnavigate the globe. So his love life (and even his married life) seemed more like an afterthought now until the Artists’ Theater Company thought of using this gap to speculate about his love life.
The Untold Story
Loosely based on what could have been included in “The Travels of Marco Polo”, “Marco Polo: An Untold Love Story” tells of an affair that blossomed between the Venetian merchant and one of Kublai Khan’s daughters, Kogajin. Set at the time when the emperor was at war with his cousins over territorial disputes, it leaned more towards the theory that the part of China that Marco Polo reached is closer to modern-day Mongolia. Besides, why would Marco Polo’s monument be found in the Mongolian capital instead of in China?
I was fortunate to be one of the first folks to witness this musical live. And I still highly recommend it to everyone interested to discover a Filipino production that featured world-class Filipino talents – something that we can be proud of. Besides, it is about time that the Filipino start exporting quality productions, not just talents but complete productions from the script to the music.
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