The Modern Stage (4)

Lorca, between Realism and Symbolism

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)

• Playwright, poet, musician, painter, director

• Moved from Granada, Andalusia, to Madrid to attend University (1919)

• Influenced by surrealism: Dalí and Buñuel + visit to New York (1929)

• A modernist innovator, rejected the conventions of commercial theatre, which then dominated the Spanish stage

• Appointed by the new left-wing Republican government as director of the itinerant theatre company La Barraca (1931)

• Killed in Granada by Franco’s fascist militia in 1936, he was one of the early victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)

Between Realism and Symbolism

“The theatre which does not feel the social pulse, the historical pulse, the drama of its people, and catch the

genuine colour of its landscape and of its spirit, with laughter or with tears, has no right to call itself a

theatre” (1934)

“[T]he duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought. [...] Seeking the

duende, there is neither map nor discipline. We only know it burns the blood like

powdered glass, that it exhausts, rejects all the

sweet geometry we understand...” (1930)

The Rural Trilogy

• Blood Wedding (1933)

• Yerma (1934)

• The House of Bernarda Alba (1936)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDP1lJgLnFQ

Lorca’s women: “it is apparent that the standards of psychological realism are not to be strictly applied to them: they obey the laws of symbolism” (Styan, vol. 2, p. 86)

The House of Bernarda Alba

Realism

•“A drama about women in the villages of Spain”

•“A photographic document”

•“Not a drop of poetry! Reality! Realism!”

Symbolism

•Colour: light and dark, white and black

•Language: rhythm, imagery

•Sound: separation between on- and off-stage

The House of Bernarda Alba

Tyranny (Fascism) in the nation and the family

Society (gossip, surveillance)

Gender(absent men’s power)

Sexuality(repressed desires)

Class(social status)

Recent Adaptations

National Theatre of Scotland (2009); text by Rona Munro, dir. John Tiffany

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP2UpbT5cIohttp://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/?page=s550

Recent AdaptationsAlmeida Theatre, London (2012);

text by Emily Mann, dir. Bijan Sheibani

http://www.almeida.co.uk/Downloads/projects/Resource_Packs/House_of_Bernarda_Alba_Resource_Pack.pdf

Exercise 1 (in class)

• Male group: using Poncia’s comments, create a scene in which the men are talking

• Female groups (5 to 6 students): perform two assigned pages of the extract from Act 2

• You can choose to employ realistic or symbolic conventions, or a combination of both

Exercise 2: Prepare for Week 7

• In groups of 5 or 6, choose at least one character from each of the four plays studied to date (A Doll’s House, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Miss Julie, The House of Bernarda Alba)

• Create a short scene with these characters around one of the themes we have discussed in Unit 1. It can be ‘metatheatrical’ if you wish!

• Setting up a conflict (clash of objectives) might help shaping the scene.