1st Dec 2010
Tuesday the 23th November 2010 all the theatre classes (1st and 2nd years) went to see YERMA by Federico Garcia Lorca at the Phoenix Theatre at UVic. I really enjoyed my time. We went there with a big yellow school bus. We left the campus by 7pm, the show was at 8pm (to 10pm) and we were back by 11pm. After the show Libby asked us to write our first critical evaluation about the play:
Critical Evaluation Yerma by Federico Garcia Lorca
The theatre company of the University of Victoria performed Yerma, a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. Yerma is the story of a childless woman, with a desperate desire for motherhood and it becomes an obsession that drives her to kill her husband, when she knew that he has no desire to have children. Her desperation is driven both by the social norms of her culture, dominated by the reactionary forces of the Church’s tradition and convention, and by the fact that she lives in a society of women who have children with their husbands as it is culturally accepted and expected.The most evident themes in Yerma are passion and frustration, but at the same time themes of nature, marriage, jealousy and friendship are relevant.
The social environment in which the play is set has an important part in the play’s plot; Yerma was written in 1934 and performed for the first time the same year, in a period of political tensions that led to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.
As the director of this version anticipates, his attempt is to present both the personal and the political intentions that, he believed, animate Lorca’s play. Even if Yerma is Lorca’s work most directly associated with his assassination in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, in Lorca’s original version there is no reference to the civil war. The director of the theatre company, Warwick Dobson, has decided to emphasize Yerma as a powerful political play, other than a tragic poem for a barren wife.
It is pretty clear that the director doesn’t really honor the writing. As far as I’m concerned I agree in part with the choice of underlining the political environment of the play by setting it in a different and most significant time by the original version. In order to make this objective more powerful he makes a strategic use of the production elements. First of all the setting of the stage is really expressive and helps to make some scene more realistic; for example, thanks to the setting, the “Laundress Scene” creates a close interaction with the audience. The stage is surrounded by the audience on three sides, with the possibility to enter and to exit both by the bottom of the stage and of course by the backstage. In the stage there is also a nice mountain landscape background, a stream below the stage proper and a big tree on a side of the stage. The costume design matches up with the setting and the Spanish rural atmosphere, thanks also to the strategic use of symbols, such as the color red that symbolizes both the antifascist during the civil war and love, pain, blood and passion.
The stage was brightly light at all times, clearly visible and without any kind of 'illusion', which tend to snap the audience into reality and create harmony with the setting and characters movements. This harmony also gives a certain rhythm to the play and helps the audience to follow the actions going on in the stage. Comparing to little stages, such as The Max Bell Theatre, the set and the lighting are very challenging. Also the utilization of the stage’s particular round shape is a brilliant and innovative idea.
Beyond, they are also different choices that I question, either because I find them unnecessary or because inappropriate in the play’s setting. The whole play is both accompanied by a guitar and by sounds emitted by the actors present during the scenes. According to the setting and Lorca’s original version of the play, the idea of a guitarist next to the stage playing the main sounds of the play have a strong emotional impact, so is also when the main character communicate to each other or to the audience singing, creating a strong emotional impact. Since the first scene of the play, you can observe different moment, in which almost all the characters are in the stage making sounds, ground noises and little and constant actions which are very distractive and avoid you to focus on what is going on in the stage. Sometime in these scenes too many technical elements are involved; such as lights, music, choreographs and at the same time dialogues, which seems too difficult for the actors and very distracting for the audience. Another aspect that I totally diverge from was the use of projection at the beginning and at the end of the play; this device is in disharmony with the scenery and the phrases projected are not clear enough and legible.
Generally through the play there is no magic or surprise but the director’s choice of a shocking and unnatural ending is a fact that I disagree with even if there is a catharsis of emotions when she kills her husband.
Personally I think that not all the characters are fully realized. In particular, the main character, Yerma, she is the leader character and she has the “power” almost in every scene but are biggest lack is how to control the power. There are a lot of scenes where she uses to much energy where not necessary, so it’s very difficult for the spectator to catch the turning points. Differently by Lorca’s version, in this version Yerma character is static and there is no natural climax in her acting. Her desire to have a child at the beginning of the show is almost the same at the end but act in a different way. Her character has inner turmoil, in many cases she is too dramatic and as a spectator you can feel that the actress is not physiologically connects with her character, effective; but is still a matter of fact that she has the most physiologically engaged role.
Almost all the other characters are physically and emotionally expressive even if they are not really psychologically engaged. Specifically, Yerma’s husband is a little bit passive in the first act, but by the end of the second act a natural climax is clearly visible in his character. Even if the Pagan Woman sometimes doesn’t control her vocally, her character is physically well defined.
As part of the audience I enjoyed the show, even if I disagree with some of the director’s choices, all together it is a good and well organised show, even if is performs by amateur actors. During the show I felt a huge emotional distance between me and the actors, particularly during the dialogues, because I didn’t feel personally engaged; but in the most emotionally powerful scenes I felt a lot of sympathy for the deeply unhappy individuals, Yerma and her husband Juan; the “fourth wall” was broken.
I would recommend the play to others because I think it’s a good play in a very interesting social contest. I’m not sure that I would recommend this version, but with the appropriate background both about Lorca’s original version and this director interpretation, I’m pretty sure it would be a nice experience. Personally the play doesn’t have any lasting impact on me both because it refers to a past event and because it doesn’t involved me directly, even if it’s something to crew on. A very clear aim of Dobson is to associate the play with the Spanish Civil War, the institution of Catholicism and the strict sexual morality of Spanish society, which are points I reflect on and discuss even after the play. He supposes that Yerma’s longing for a child reflects the hopes of the republicans for the future of an antifascist Spain.
Gugu
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