Blood
Wedding, Blood Wedding
Imago Theater, 17
SE 8th Ave., 231-9581.
7:30 pm Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays. Closes Oct. 16.
$12-$15.
There is nothing wrong with realism. As a movement it swept
stages clean of bombast and artificiality. But realism has
held power for too long, and its cultists, dedicated to the
plain and ordinary, are having to contend with a new demand
for fantasy, dream and symbolism. In short, we are entering
a period in which an actor can play the moon on stage, and
quite convincingly, too.
Federico Garcia Lorca's haunting poetic drama Blood
Wedding will be given two rival productions here in
Portland over the next two months. Next week sees the opening
of the Miracle Theater's production, while here we will
look at Imago's current production, retitled Blood Wedding,
Blood Wedding. Like any good realist, Lorca was inspired
to write the play after reading a newspaper account of a
blood feud that erupted around a village wedding, where
a bridegroom and his bride's former lover fell into a murderous
fight. But Lorca saw this incident as an archetypal folk
tragedy of his native Spain, a mythic element present in
its balladry and legend. Lorca remarried this slice of reportage
to its mythical foundation, using the elements of folklore.
All of Lorca's characters are archetypes: The Bridegroom,
the Bride, the Servant, the Mother. Only one character,
the bride's former lover, Leonardo, is named. Lorca's intention
was to dramatize the compulsive repetition of violence throughout
Spanish culture, and director Jerry Mouawad has cleverly
realized this by double-casting all of the principal characters.
Through the use of blackouts, one actor will replace another
mid-scene, which accentuates the play's universality. The
lines are spoken with a studied flatness evincing the words'
preordination, while the movement is also stylized. These
are characters coffled together by fate and moving, inexorably,
toward the play's title.
In Act I, Lorca sets the scenes leading up to the tragedy.
The bridegroom and his mother visit the bride-to-be and
her father to finish preparations for the upcoming wedding.
Elsewhere, the bride's former lover, now married to another
woman, suffers longing for the bride. The wedding becomes
a village affair that is soon destroyed by the news that
the bride has ridden off with her former lover. Act II transports
us into the realm of legend, as the lovers are pursued by
the bridegroom into a thick wood where Death and the Moon
dwell. The story is taken up by three woodsmen who, like
the Fates, know all. There is a meeting between the Moon
and Death in which the scene is prepared for the real wedding:
that between the bridegroom and the lover who take each
other in death and who are finally brought together to a
church on biers.
Mouawad has created some unforgettable moments in this
play, such as the three woodsmen scene, the entrance of
the Moon, and the scene between the lovers leading up to
the tragedy. His "poor theater" approach to the staging
is also excellent. At present, there are still some transitional
problems with the many blackouts, with some actors striving
too hard to affect the pose of their double. Also, there
are too many blackouts at the top of the show. A more gradual
approach would better establish the concept with the audience.
One other criticism is that the scenes with Death traveling
through the woods are strained through repetition.
Mouawad's cast is one of the most interesting I've seen.
Carol Triffle is joined by the excellent Heidi Carlsen,
Georgia Luce, Molly Baukman, and Laura Lou Pape McCarthy.
Tobin Gollihar turns in his best work as the pained, Pierrot-like
Moon, while two other Bridge City regulars, Ian Paul Sieren
and Phillip Grogg, also give exceptional performances.
The marriage of Lorca with Imago has been nothing less
than fruitful.
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Willamette Week | originally
published September 22,
1999
|
