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Edited and Published by Robert W. McDowell

February 9, 2023 Issue
PART 4C2 (February 4, 2022)

A FREE Weekly E-mail Newsletter Covering Theater, Dance, Music, and Film in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill/Carrboro Area of North Carolina Since April 2001.

PART 4A: TRIANGLE THEATER REVIEW BY JOEL HAAS

RLT's Blood Wedding Is Well-Acted, But Not Well-Sung

WARNING: This review contains lots of "spoilers."

Before he was executed on Spanish Nationalist general Francisco Franco's orders in 1936 at age 38, Federico García Lorca had managed to write several volumes of poetry, a film script, four plays, and numerous songs, about a dozen of which are still covered by Spanish artists today.

Between the songs and the opera, it is not surprising that Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre) might be considered that rare beast, a musical tragedy. With only a few capable voices, the current Raleigh Little Theatre's production, directed by Rachel Klem, is a musical tragedy in its own way. My companion commented halfway through the performance, "Where is Sondheim when you need him?"

Originally premiering in Madrid in 1933, Blood Wedding is set in rural Spain. The major characters have titles, not names. There are the Groom (Chase Condrone), the Bride (Aysia Slade), the Mother (Deb Teitelbaum), the Father (Simon Kaplan), the Wife (Mary Elizabeth Baumgarten), the Moon (Zoe Barham), the Maid (Debbie Litwak-Kling), the Neighbor (Denise Karrip Sepic), the Mother-in-Law (Ruthie Martinez), Death disguised as an old beggar woman (Carol Machuca), and Leonardo (Daniel Cryer-Muthedath Ryder). Rounding out the Ensemble cast/stagehands are Michael Bradley Lamont, Savannah Lange, Ariel Penland, Danielle Santos, Skye Pham, Jarred Pearce, and Brynna Rosenberg.

The play opens with Mother slicing apples or bread while ruminating obsessively about knives and the fact that her husband and older son were stabbed to death several years before. She has one son left, Groom. Terrified of losing him, Mother is overprotective. Groom now runs the modest farm that they own. Before he heads out to the vines one morning, he tells Mother that he's getting married.

The scene shifts to Wife and Mother-in-Law holding and singing to a baby boy. Wife's husband, Leonardo, enters in a foul mood. When questioned, he complains of having to re-shoe his horse earlier in the day. Mother-in-Law comments that Leonardo was seen riding quite far away, miles from his own farm. He denies it, and then angrily leaves.

Mother is so obsessed with her husband's and son's murders that she barely hears what Groom is saying. Finally, she realizes what he's said and sees she might lose him to Bride.

Groom goes to the vineyard, and Neighbor stops by to see Mother. Neighbor tells Mother that Bride is a wonderful young woman, spotless in reputation. There is one very small fly in the ointment, though. Bride had had a several-years-long courtship with Leonardo of the same family that killed Mother's husband and son.

Leonardo was a child at the time, and had nothing to do with the murders. He is now married to Bride's cousin Wife. However, Leonardo is still in love with Bride. He was turned down not by Bride but by Bride's Father on the grounds that Leonardo was too poor.

At the wedding reception, everybody is happy, except Bride and Leonardo. Soon it is realized Bride and Leonardo have run off together, disappearing into the nearby woods.

Enraged, the Groom pursues them.


RLT will stage Blood Wedding on Jan. 27-Feb. 12 in its Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre (photo by Jeannine Borzello)

In the woods, loggers are a Greek chorus, singing that they hope that true love wins out and forced marriages to join estates and fortunes will decline. Moon appears above them, singing that she will shine so brightly that Groom will have no trouble finding Leonardo and Bride.

Death, disguised as a beggar woman, encounters Groom. "I think you'd look so much better lying on the ground as if you were asleep," the beggar tells him. Ignoring this portent, Groom pushes on to catch Leonardo. Confronted, Leonardo turns and fights Groom. Both die when they fatally stab each other in the brawl.

Back at Mother's house, young maids play catch with balls of red string. Representing the Fates, they sing of cutting the twine, joining twines, and so on. As they depart, we are again in Mother's kitchen as she tells Neighbor that she'll be fine now.

Mother says that she'll get a good night's sleep. (Now that she has lost everything that she values, she won't have to worry about anything bad befalling her sons or husband.) At that point, Bride appears, bedraggled from running through the woods. Mother, boiling with anger, slaps and claws Bride, punishment Bride is ready to accept.

Bride takes responsibility for what has transpired. Mother scolds Bride for what she has done. Bride responds that Mother would have run off too if she had been burning with love. To stay within the bounds of respectable society, Bride had agreed to marry Groom, because "... your son was a tiny drop of water that I hoped would give me children, land, health." But Leonardo was a "dark river," a strong current that Bride was unable to resist. Bride tells Mother that she is there to weep with her. "Then go cry by the door!" Mother shouts as the play ends.

RLT is to be commended for performing a play unfamiliar to most American playgoers, but the effort is undermined by structural difficulties. The Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre is best set up as a thrust stage with audience on three sides. Miyuki Su's beautifully designed and constructed set requires that scene changes all take place with the Ensemble, dressed as servants, moving furniture and props around after clearing the stage of props, etc., from the previous scene. This takes enough time between each scene that the pace of the show is hobbled. Perforce, actors will always be facing away from some of the audience, so it is easy to miss some of the lines, particularly if they are spoken softly.

All of the main parts are well cast for acting. The Ensemble/stagehands are all very young and their voices show it. The majority of the cast simply cannot sing well, so I cannot pass judgement on Lorca's musical abilities, nor on the music that composer/conductor Tony Mendez has written for the play.

Jenny Mitchell's costuming is simple but effective -- the audience has no problem recognizing the character's status and place in the story. The black-and-red bridal gown is beautiful. A special recognition goes to lighting designer Ryann Norris for her excellent use of light to create the forest in the second half of the play.

Elaine Petrone's stage managing, assisted by Dan Eckert, kept the actors and techies coordinated, so that everybody showed up in the right place at the right time. George Labusohr is a certified fight director for the final knife fight between Leonardo and Groom. Lomarev Jones is the choreography and intimacy director (I couldn't fathom why the play needed an intimacy director.)


Raleigh Little Theatre will stage Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding
on Jan. 27-Feb. 12 in its Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre (photo by Jeannine Borzello)

Federico García Lorca's BLOOD WEDDING (Bodas de sangre) (In Person at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4, 5, and 9-12), translated by Lillian Groag, directed by Rachel Klem, and starring Deb Teitelbaum as Mother, Chase Condrone as Groom, Denise Karrip Sepic as Neighbor, Simon Kaplan as Father, Aysia Slade as Bride, Debbie Litwak-Kling as Maid, Daniel Cryer-Muthedath Ryder as Leonardo, Mary Elizabeth Baumgarten as Wife, Ruthie Martinez as Mother-in-Law, Carol Machuca as Beggar Woman/Death, and Zoe Barham as the Moon, plus an Ensemble that includes Brynna Rosenberg, Savannah Lange, Danielle Santos, Skye Pham, Jarred Pearce, Michael Bradley Lamont, and Ariel Penland (Raleigh Little Theatre in the Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre in Raleigh). PROGRAM: http://raleighlittletheatre.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Blood-Wedding-Program.pdf. VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/user/raleighlittletheatre. 2022-23 SEASON: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/shows-and-events/. THE PRESENTER: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/, https://www.facebook.com/RLT1936, https://www.instagram.com/RLT1936/, https://twitter.com/RLT1936, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raleigh_Little_Theatre, and https://www.youtube.com/user/raleighlittletheatre. RLT PODCAST: https://anchor.fm/rltpodcast. SEATING CHARTS: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/visit-us/seating-charts/. DIRECTIONS: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/visit-us/. MAPS/PARKING/TRANSIT: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/visit-us/maps-and-parking/. ACCESSIBILITY: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/visit-us/accessibility/. COVID REQUIREMENTS: https://raleighlittletheatre.org/reopening-rlt/. BLOOD WEDDING (Bodas de sangre, a three-act folk tragedy that premiered in 1933): https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3005, https://www.universolorca.com/en/obra-literaria/blood-wedding/, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Blood-Wedding, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Wedding. THE SCRIPT (excerpts): https://books.google.com/books (complete Spanish text). FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA (Spanish poet and dramatist, 1898-1936): https://garcia-lorca.org/en/, https://www.universolorca.com/en/, https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/federico-garcia-lorca-5514, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0305030/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Federico-Garcia-Lorca, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca. NOTE 1: All shows are wheelchair accessible, and assistive-listening devices are available for all shows. NOTE 2: Arts Access, Inc. of Raleigh will audio-describe the show's 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5th, performance. TICKETS: $27 ($23 students, seniors 62+, and active-duty military personnel), plus taxes and fees. Click here to buy tickets. INFORMATION: 919-821-3111 or BoxOffice@RaleighLittleTheatre.org. PLEASE DONATE TO: Raleigh Little Theatre.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Joel Haas first acted in Raleigh Little Theatre's 1968 production of What Price Glory. Then in 1973 he was in several Theatre in the Park productions, including Cyrano, in which he played Le Bret. It wasn't until 1990 that he appeared on stage again, this time as a homeless veteran named Lou in The Speed of Darkness.

Haas' mother, Douglas Haas Bennett (1927-2018), was a professional theater costumer, the first full-time costumer that RLT hired. She later founded her own theater supply company, Raleigh Creative Costumes, in 1975.

Between 1981 and 2021, Joel Haas worked as a freelance steel and general materials sculptor in the Triangle. Since 2020, he has been writing magazine articles and a blog called Our War with Paraguay and How to Sit in a Hoopskirt: The U.S. Between 1848 and 1868 as Told by the Newspapers of the Time. (And, yes, the United States almost went to war with Paraguay in 1858.) Click here to read Joel Haas' reviews for Triangle Review.

 


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