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”
Symbolism
•Colour: light and dark,
white and black
•“A photographic document” •Language: rhythm, imagery
•“Not a drop of poetry!
Reality! Realism!”
•Sound: separation between
on- and off-stage
The House of Bernarda Alba
Society
(gossip,
surveillance)
Class
(social status)
Tyranny
(Fascism)
in the nation
and the family
Sexuality
(repressed
desires)
Gender
(absent men’s
power)
Recent Adaptations
National Theatre of Scotland (2009);
text by Rona Munro, dir. John Tiffany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP2UpbT5cIo
http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/?page=s550
Recent Adaptations
Almeida 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.