★ “Blood Wedding”, by FG Lorca. With Maria Onetto and cast. Vivi Tellas’ version and staging of Federico García Lorca’s classic is not convincing for many reasons.
Since its premiere, in 1933, it has been applauded all over the world, especially in our country, where the company of the legendary actress Lola Membrives made it known. “Blood Wedding”, considered one of the masterpieces of the great Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), expresses feelings unleashed by a loving passion, in the middle of the Andalusian land. Without abandoning the imagery of his pen, Lorca drank in his obsessions: the horse, the knife, blood, the burning earth, the moon and the rivers.
Written in prose and verse, through three acts, the author from Granada immerses us fully in a story of love, hate and death in which differences are resolved with the edge of a razor. The plot centers on a possessive mother who lost her husband and one of her children, both stabbed in confrontations. Obsessed with taking care of her younger offspring, she watches over him fearful of her interest in a girl he is engaged to marry. What is the cause of her mistrust? Leonardo, the only character who has her own name, cousin of her boyfriend, had an affair with his fiancée and is not willing to leave her aside. The night of the union, he runs away with the bride and they take refuge in the shadows of the forest. The two men lock in combat and, as in a Greek tragedy, fail to escape a fatal fate.
Unfortunately, that storm of emotions that emanates from the text finds a pale reflection in this ill-fated version, adapted and directed by Vivi Tellas, where everything is stated and declaimed, but never palpitated. The emphasis is placed on the visual rather than on the conviction of the performances. Even the scene in the forest, where the moon together with the beggar woman are allegorical characters associated with death, leaves aside the dream side and looks more like a recreation of a silent film by Georges Méliès or a horror film, class B. by American Ed Wood.
The confusion deepens even more with the graft of the participation of a singer, two flamenco dancers and the unjustified appearance of a young actor in the role of the aged maid. In the extensive cast, each one does what they can, although in dissimilar registers that never align with each other. Many dialogues and parliaments are unintelligible and the constant raising and lowering of the curtain to separate scenes does not help. A pity.
