Director Connie Treves’ adaptation of Lorca’s 1932 rural Spanish tragedy operates on the delicate balance between domestic life and impulsive violence. This is a play in which The Mother makes bread whilst viscerally describing the sight of her husband and son being brutally murdered with knives. And, I’m sure you’d be unsurprised that in a play entitled Blood Wedding, this violence is a key motif. The play hinges on the fact that “Blood couldn’t be denied,” relying on the fatalistic idea of ‘bad blood’ passing down through generations.
This ominous feeling of this dark inheritance was best conveyed by The Mother (Imogen Hamilton-Jones), with her nostalgic obsession with the past tainted by loss, and The Bride (Beatrice Liese), who was trapped between the comfort of marriage and the passionate heat of her relationship with Leonardo (Josh Ames Blackaby). Her tortured expression pierces the audience throughout, but it is the striking chemistry created by her and Leonardo that really packs a punch.
Treves’ focus on physical theatre and expressive movement across the stage to convey emotion is at its best between these two, whether they are flinging themselves together or pushing each other apart.
The play, however, was a little stunted by first night nerves, with many of the cast stumbling over some of their lines; the result was that Lorca’s beautifully intense dialogue sometimes didn’t hit as well as it should have.
Admittedly, this problem of delivery also stems from transferring a play full of the oppressive heat of the rural Spanish countryside in the 1930s into the somewhat sterile environment of St John’s auditorium. It made some lines feel somewhat incongruous, leading to uncomfortable laughter from the audience.
An extremely impressive aspect of the production was musical director David McFarlane’s inspired use of a string ‘tri-tet’ (did I make this word up?); it provided passionate accompaniment to the tension of the stage and was, at moments, difficult to tear one’s eyes away from.
Another of the most beautiful moments was Siwan Clark’s turn as The Moon, for which she sung and played the harp. Her stunning voice was heightened by the accompaniment of wonderfully choreographed dance, reflecting the passion – but also panic – of the moment.
The use of dance as a production piece was interlocked with the physical focus of the play: several scenes put the actors through their paces with demanding expressive dance sequences.
The physicality, however, worked better at some times than others – the ambiguous hair ruffling that started the play was slightly lost on me. But the physical theatre was most effective when the dialogue did not quite deliver: gesture expressing something words could not quite express.
Overall, however, this is a very ambitious play which conveys the heat and passion of Lorca’s tragedy through its expert use of physicality, as well as some brilliantly effective music and dance, and as such should be applauded.
Blood Wedding runs at St. John’s Auditorium until Friday 27th February.
