García Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding’ at the Vortex
Federico García Lorca spun the clash of society against the human heart within the unconsciousness of surrealism. The Spanish poet’s “Blood Wedding” opens at the Vortex Theatre on Friday.
Adapted into English by the playwright Caridad Svich, the story opens in a recognizable reality before swelling into the symbolic world of emotions, director Valli Rivera said. García Lorca’s script rails against the bourgeois of Spanish society.
The playwright set the conflict within the triangle of a bride, a groom and her former lover.
“It was an important message at the time,” Rivera said. “When García Lorca wrote this play, (Francisco) Franco was trying to suppress the community and their cultural expressions under his Nationalist, fascist views.”
As “Blood Wedding” opens, the audience learns the groom’s father and brother were killed by a relative of the bride’s former lover, Leonardo. When the groom’s mother learns from a neighbor about the pair’s past relationship, she is livid.
“The (bride) is going to marry her only son; her only hope of having grandchildren,” Rivera said, “her only hope of longevity.”
Next the two families discuss the engagement, with the emphasis on the land and money the bride will attain. Her ex-lover possessed neither.
Eventually, the newly wedded bride escapes into the forest with Leonardo. The groom’s mother demands revenge, as her son races to find them.
García Lorca questioned the values of tradition and conformity.
“It is an allegory to what was happening in Spain,” Rivera said. “It’s an allegory for today because our country is so divided.”
García Lorca was executed by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. His body has never been found.
“Blood Wedding” stars Malcolm June (“Hamlet”), Angelina Ortiz (“Alice in Wonderland,” “She Kills Monsters”), Sam Shoemaker-Trejo and Ed Chavez (“The Comedy of Errors,” “The Nance”).