2010

‘Blood Wedding’ uses music, dance to explore themes of love and death

In Muhlenberg’s production of Lorca’s 1933 play,flamenco music, dance are part of the fabric of the text. On stage April 29 to May 2, the play features dancer/choreographer La Conja and guitarist/composer Ben Abrahamson as guest artists

 Monday, April 12, 2010 00:23 PM

When director Francine Roussel looks for a new project, she tries to find a play that will present new challenges for herself and her actors — something they’ve never tackled before.
That’s what attracted her to “Blood Wedding,” the 1933 play by Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca. The play employs rich, heightened text, song, dance, and mask work in order to tell the story of forbidden love in an oppressive society.
Blood Wedding concludes the Muhlenberg College Department of Theatre and Dance’s 2009-2010 season. It runs April 29 through May 2 in Muhlenberg’s Studio Theatre.

The first two acts of “Blood Wedding” tell the story of a passionate love affair that reignites a long-standing family feud, in rural southern Spain in the 1930s. But in the third act, the lovers flee into the woods, and here everything changes. Mystical, mythical characters enter the story, charged with the symbolism of death, honor and impossible love.
“The third act of ‘Blood Wedding’ has a challenge that no other play has,” says Roussel, an associate professor of theater at the college. “It explores and challenges the theatrical form.”

In part her approach to meeting the challenges of the piece has been to weave the music and dance of flamenco through the entire piece — to heighten the action on stage, and imbue it with a tragic dimension. Acclaimed flamenco dancer and choreographer La Conja and guitarist Ben Abrahamson were brought on board as guest artists.
“Flamenco is a dialogue between life and death, and you can see and hear that in the rhythm of the music and dance,” Roussel says. “The dance, for me, became a necessity, and the music did too.”

Natalie Cutcher ’10 plays the bride who runs away with her forbidden lover on her own wedding night. She says the experience of this production is unlike any in which she has ever participated.
“Lorca brilliantly manages to bring the passion, suffering, joy, and beauty of Spanish culture to the stage through his exceptionally rich text,” Cutcher says. “Francine took it one step further by adding the live flamenco music and dance. Now the audience’s ears will be filled with the poetry of Lorca’s words while their eyes feast on the strength of our movements.”

For Roussel, the inclusion of other art forms is very much in the spirit of Lorca, who advocated “total theater,” in which various disciplines are integrated into a cohesive performance piece. She says it is often missing from productions of “Blood Wedding,” which usually feature just a small dance number during the wedding fiesta.
“My goal is to make the music and dance part of the fabric of the text,” she says. “Music and dance become another voice that is just as important as the text.”

To heighten the presence of flamenco in the production, Roussel has introduced the character of El Duende, a Gypsy, played by La Conja. El Duende dances her way through the piece, particularly through the ethereal third act. La Conja has spent the semester at Muhlenberg, working with students on flamenco dancing and creating the evocative choreography of “Blood Wedding.”

“Blood Wedding” is, at its heart, “a story well told,” Roussel says. “But more importantly, the presence of poetry in Lorca’s play reminds us how important poetry is in daily life — as a way to express ourselves fully and to perceive the world with a more acute vision.”
“Blood Wedding” plays in the black box-style Studio Theatre in Muhlenberg College’s Trexler Pavilion for Theatre and Dance, April 29 through May 2. Performances are Thursday and Friday, April 29-30, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, May 1, at 2 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, May 2, at 2 p.m. The show is recommended for mature audiences.

Tickets are $15, $8 for ages 14 to 17. They may be purchased Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 484-664-3333 or in person at the box office, or online at www.muhlenberg.edu/tickets. Availability is limited.
A special panel discussion titled “Blood Wedding: Passion, Tradition and Challenge” will be held opening night, Thursday, April 29, at 4:30 p.m. The discussion will include Erika M. Sutherland and Eduardo Olid, of Muhlenberg’s Spanish department, and Jim Bloom, of the English department. Admission to the panel discussion is free.