BLOOD WEDDING by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated by Guillermo Verdecchia, with Diane DAquila, Gordon Hecht, Hailey Gillis, Colin Palangio, Courtney Chng Lancaster, Oliver Dennis and Andrew Penner. Presented by Soulpepper at the Young Centre (50 Tank House). Opens Tuesday (March 15) and runs to April 9 see soulpepper.ca for schedule. $32-$94, rush $5-$25. 416-866-8666.
In Federico Garcia Lorcas classic drama Blood Wedding, the lives of a rural Spanish community follow the dark course of Greek tragedy.
A woman about to marry runs away on her wedding day with her former lover, prompting a series of passionate, vengeful and violent actions.
For Erin Brandenburg, who directs Lorcas script for Soulpepper Theatre, the story is just as powerful when set in small-town Ontario.
When I was a member of the Soulpepper Academy, I chose Blood Wedding as my thesis project, says Brandenburg. At the time Id only read it in a university class, but the play spoke to my Ontario background. That surprised me, since on the surface the writing is specifically about Lorcas culture and institutions.
I was also drawn to its combination of poetry, music and characters who are incredibly realistic one moment and then incredibly not, as they turn into symbolic figures.
As Brandenburg worked on her idea for the script, Soulpeppers Albert Schultz suggested getting a new translation by Guillermo Verdecchia, the Academys head of playwriting.
I suggested putting the work into a Canadian setting, because I felt more comfortable with that than working on a specifically Spanish play. I wanted something that felt at home in the mouths of the Canadian actors who would be bringing it to life.
The result has become a mainstage show for the company, one thats kept the 1930s quality of the original.
There are still communities in Ontario, down some country road, where things havent changed much in 80 or 100 years, explains the director. Though there are technological innovations in these places, you can find the same gender roles and other rules that people have been living with for generations. It might not be as overt as in the 30s, but these attitudes are still present.
Music is as vital as text to the production. Brandenburg and composer/musician Andrew Penner, who run Kitchenband, have collaborated on a number of memorable music/theatre pieces in the past, including Reesor, Pelee and BOBLO. All are rooted somehow in rural Ontario and have the feel of an earlier time and place.
Penner contributes the music and plays in the band for Blood Wedding, also performing the enigmatic figure of the Moon.
The music is in the folk idiom, and weve gone back to the idea of folk music as a storytelling device, one that chronicles events. The main influence for us was the murder ballad, whose music is sometimes passed down through the years and translated differently for various periods or communities.
The whole piece, argues Brandenburg, can be seen as a large-scale piece of music.
Each scene has its own movement within the whole, with Anna Atkinson and Andrew as the central musicians playing saw, fiddle and guitar. Occasionally, though, we get some electric guitars, and the sound gets huge.
Weve taken some liberties and have more music in our staging the onstage band becomes the wedding band, and songs provide a way of scoring scenes.
The director points out that though many of the plays elements are familiar, they dont develop as youd expect.
A trope such as the mother/son relationship or the village marriage starts on a road you think you know, then kicks it to the side. Things dont unravel quite as the audience anticipates.
She saw and loved last years Dora-winning production of Blood Wedding by Modern Times Stage Company and Aluna Theatre.
Ours is different, but one of the plays strengths is that it can be interpreted in various ways. The conversations that involve this poetic text can go in so many directions.
