A trembling bride. A distrustful mother. Two murderous rivals vying for a single, wavering hand. A wedding vow broken, unleashing all the violence of a family feud and the vengeance of a Moon who rouges her cheeks with the blood she spills.

A new translation of Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding), Federico García Lorca’s highly stylized, lyrical tragedy, was put on beautifully by Full Moon Theatre at the Oxford Playhouse. Expressing the fiery intensity of rural Andalusia in English, a language which seems cold, even clinical when compared to Spanish, is no easy undertaking. The play’s anglophone performance history has certainly seen the act of translation subdue its magnificent emotions, but Emma Nihill Alcorta (director and translator) conjured perfection with her bilingual vision. Mostly in English, the dialogue remained faithful to the melodies of Lorca’s Spanish, his syntactic and lexical style preserved in a glimmering undercurrent which resisted full anglicisation of the original idiom. The songs, meanwhile, were performed in Spanish with English surtitles, a choice which anchored the tragedy to its cultural poetics. 

Short and sweet, Blood Wedding leaves little room for character development. An appreciation of this tragedy rests much more on a taste for aesthetic spectacle and social critique, not quite indulging the modern tendency to over-psychologise. All its characters are unnamed archetypes rather than individuals, designated by their titles (The Bride, The Mother, The Bridegroom, The Father) – except for Leonardo Felix, the rival suitor, who swoops in to wreck the social order. They are swept ominously along their tragic arc by the duende, a concept associated with flamenco which literally refers to a “ghost” or “goblin” in Spanish folklore, and is thought to plunge people into “a state of tragedy-inspired ecstasy”. The duende is often elusive in translation but must not be forgotten in the works of Lorca, who conceptualises it as a “mysterious power” and “spirit of the earth”, sensed in “the dancers of Cadiz or the beheaded, Dionysian scream of Silverio’s siguiriya.” 

The Full Moon Theatre team was fabulously attentive to these nuances. The terrified Bride (Thalia Kermisch) was in control of every micro-expression; her wide, expressive eyes intensified her performance and made her character appear possessed by this obscure chthonic force, the duende. The wedding scene seemed to rise to a bacchic frenzy, the entranced cast swaying and chanting folk wedding songs in synchronised festivity. As the music and mayhem increased in volume, so did the voices of the betrotheds’ arguing parents (played powerfully by Siena Jackson-Wolfe and Rohan Joshi) – and the dramatic tension rose to a scream, drowning out the Bride and her Bridegroom’s (Gilon Fox) hopeless attempts to communicate. Amid all the chaos, the Maid (Rebekah Devlin) brought the Bride to laughter one final time before catastrophe. She stole the show with her virtuoso solo – “Despierte la novia la mañana de la boda. ¡Que los ríos del mundo lleven tu corona!” – a melody that still lingers in my head, thanks to the memorable score composed by Elsa Vass-de-Zomba specifically for this production.

The disappearance of the Bride with Leonardo Felix (Gillies Macdonald) put an abrupt end to the dancing, and the backdrop was suddenly coloured by a menacing crimson. With the action transposed to a surreal forest realm, the bloodthirsty personifications of the Moon (Lucía Mayorga) and Death as a Beggarwoman (Emily White) now dominated the tragedy. They plunged the rival suitors into a fight to the death, choreographed with such elegance that it resembled a dance. 

It was always going to end in blood. The vitriolic Mother (Siena Jackson-Wolfe) dressed in black from the start, preemptively mournful. Elevated on stage as silent observers of the action, three girls in red skirts spun red yarn and became this play’s very own Fates. This Full Moon Theatre production eclipsed any other that I’ve seen this term, and I am excited to see what their next cycle brings. 

There is a lot to like about Natascha Norton’s Crocodile Tears. Female lead Elektra Voulgari Cleare is both electric and effortlessly elegant, and male lead Flynn Ivo delivers a gripping performance that is both emphatic and earnest. I was particularly moved by the opening scene (on screen), where the chemistry between the actors felt piercing and palpable. The lighting, led by Felix Gibbons with assistance from Euan Elliott, masterfully blends the on-screen material with the real world, skilfully bridging the digital divide.

Indeed, I was drawn in by the multi-media nature of the production, a format that is both new to me, and to student production in Oxford generally. Norton and the Director Rosie Morgan-Males must be applauded for boldly taking an experimental approach to theatre, and the misgivings expressed here should not discourage them, or any aspiring artist from pursuing boundary-breaking experiences that challenge our conventional understanding of this ancient medium.

However, whilst I was impressed by the technological experience, I was at times distracted by the abrupt transitions between screen, stage, and sound. For example, within a single scene there would often be dialogue that is spoken, played, and shown on screen. Although this was an interesting idea, I wasn’t entirely sure why this decision was taken: why was it necessary for the actors on stage to suddenly stop speaking and for their dialogues to be played? For example, in one of the scenes where the characters were having an intensive dialogue about their relationship, the female lead suddenly stepped off the screen into real life in order to converse with her digital interlocutor. This transition took me out of the emotional elements of the scene, which were otherwise well done.

I was also puzzled by the themes of this production and the medium through which Norton had chosen to deliver it. Labyrinth Productions has frequently chosen plays which focus on questions of intimacy and relationships, having just come off a high-anticipated run a few weeks ago with the play Closer. Crocodile Tears is no different. The overriding conflict in the story was between two main characters – or perhaps I should say a lead and her supporting actor, as Cleare had significantly more stage time than Ivo – and the gradual breakdown of their relationship over an undefined period. It is therefore curious that Norton chose this techno-futuristic format to deliver this production, as it did not immediately seem clear to me what the added value of partially digitised dialogue is.

This choice reflects a broader trend in contemporary theatre towards digital integration. As Jesse Green wrote for the New York Times recently during the Tony awards, “virtual scenery reached critical mass on Broadway.” It is no secret that stage productions are increasingly adopting digital formats, often due to lower costs as well as to appear more modern. And modern this play certainly was, integrating amongst other things a dialogue between the female lead and ChatGPT. My misgivings about AI in theatre aside, I was disappointed by how the chatbot was used, as it produced generic sounding responses that could very easily have been spoken by a human (and not the sycophantic rant these models tend to give). And indeed, much more work could have gone into the sound engineering, as the films shown on screen were both too loud and too quiet at different moments.

Speaking to members of the audience after the production, many shared their confusion at the plot of the story, which was convoluted and fragmented: the relationship appears suspended in time, with neither a clear beginning nor a satisfying resolution, and the tensions in each scene was never resolved. Of course, I suspect that plot was not the focus for Norton in this production; the programme simply invites us to enjoy the ‘haunting soundscapes and Virginia Woolf-style lyricism.’ Ultimately, though, Crocodile Tears does too much of everything to fail at mastering anything, an admirable attempt at abolishing anachronism that ultimately ends in aimlessness.

ART is charming. Centred around long-time friends Yvan (Ronav Jain), Marcus (Rufus Shutter) and Serge (Jem Hunter), the play not only raises pertinent questions about modern art but tries to unravel what exactly makes people stay friends, even when they grow to have little in common. When Serge buys a white canvas for 200,000 francs, long-simmering tensions rise to the surface and threaten to destroy their friendship. 

I think it is only appropriate to start by turning my attention to the designers behind ART who should be very proud of what they’ve achieved. Oli Spooner and Theo Joly, the play’s producers, directors and sound and costume designers – a truly impressive juggling of departments – clearly had a strong creative vision for the play. 

The Burton Taylor Studio (BT) was almost unrecognisable. Using thrust seating, set designer Clara Sancha turned the space into a “deconstructed” – as Serge would say – living room. There was a simple wooden desk centre stage and everything around it was white, the walls of the BT being completely covered in white cloth. An easel, placed upstage, served as a clever way of indicating changes of place without the need for major set changes: when inside Serge’s home it held the white canvas, and when we were in Marcus’ apartment a more traditional view of Carcassonne replaced it.

The costume design was one of my favourite aspects of the play: it was simple yet intelligent. The three friends wore identical outfits, except for their t-shirts: white but each splashed with a different primary colour (red, blue and green), serving to highlight their fundamental differences in character and taste. The costume design was aligned with Felix Gibbons’ highly successful lighting design, which flashed red, blue, and green alternately.

In ART, there are moments when the characters step out of their conversations to confide in the audience. However, instead of trying to make such a contrived theatrical convention natural, the directors leaned into the artificiality of the asides completely. When characters interrupted their dialogue with each other we got a short burst of jazz and a flash of coloured light – disrupting the otherwise white lighting state – corresponding  to the colour on the character’s costume. The result was surprisingly effective. 

More than anything else, ART demands a strong cast of performers who can walk the line between comedy and drama. In this respect, the cast delivered. Although not all the dramatic beats landed entirely, this production of ART was undeniably successful at humour. With so many of the play’s laughs hinging on the wittiness of the dialogue, I was struck by how well the cast managed physical comedy. Jem Hunter was particularly successful at this, endowing his character with all sorts of affected mannerisms that the audience thoroughly enjoyed. As he stepped onto the stage, his dramatic flick of the white cloth which covered the BT’s walls immediately seemed to win everyone over. 

Although both Jem Hunter and Ronav Jain gave great performances, Rufus Shutter’s Marc was the gravitational centre of the play. He brings an emotional depth to the character, an embittered self-absorption that intensifies all the play’s moments of tension. When Marc is forced to drop his sardonic facade, his emotional vulnerability is palpable and moving. 

However, perhaps appropriately, the play’s piéce de resistance is a collaboration between all its creatives. As an argument between the three friends evolves into a physical fight, the jazz soundtrack becomes cacophonous as the lights flash violently. It is vibrant and chaotic. This is ART at its best. 

Whether you’re a fan of contemporary art or not, this production is a guaranteed evening of fun, which may or may not make you rethink some of your friendships.