It's a bloody mess
When I came to preview the latest Garcia Lorca play to be strutting it's stuff around our steepled streets, a production gruesomely entitled Blood Wedding, I was interested to see how different it would be to last term's interpretation of the same author's Yerma. Thankfully, there is enough disparity between the two productions to make this one enjoyable in its own right, and to lend colour to those of you fortunate enough to have caught it's predecessor.
I wonder if Paul O'Mahony is a happy person? There is sometimes such a sickly desparation in his voice, such a wild glare in his eye, that I am almost wholly sure he need do no acting at all to fill out the cardboard cut-out that is his character, Leonardo. I muse over these thoughts as I catch him eyeing up my three year old niece gluttonously at lunch later on. There is nothing more teriffying in this world than a strategically shaved babboon, fronting as an irish classicist, eyeing up your next of kin.....apart from either opening his trousers or falling in love with him......
Kathryn O'Connor's 'Bride' ( the fated creature who alas falls for O'Mahony's 'Leonardo' ) is as neat as she is petite. She never becomes too engrossed in the highly stylised language which her situation demands, and while lending to the proceedings both womanly composure and scorn, she depicts the painful ties of emotion well. O'Mahony, by comparison, is the stubbled prince of darkness who lures her into madness. As the victim of Leonardo's astute emotional terrorism, O'Connor strives to maintain order and with this the moral high ground. However, Leonardo's sinous seduction technique prevails, and ultimately the audience is left with a few bodies and alot of blood. "Whoopee skip", I proclaim, more tragedy.....but aren't we all getting a little bored of these laborious productions? Why can't someone put on something funny ?
To give credit where credit is due, the acting is what holds this production together. O'Connor is well-aided by her servant (K. Lothian), and as the two prance around the stage in their girlish fervour one does sense that they are people, and not just puppets. O'Mahony is superbly dark, and i enjoyed his self-loathing as much as i didn't the poetic register of the production's language. If people insist on performing plays set years ago then please do something to liven them up a little. Students will not pay £5 to be dragged through two hours of original sin unless you've got satanic helpers running around in leotards spreading joy whereever they...ok so i'm exaggerating but please do something to resurrect your production.
In Blood Wedding's favour, the director, Sophie Koveous, has sensibly opted for a simple rustic setting, which seems most appropriate to the elucidation of early twentieth century Andalucia. The women are pretty and the male lead's well felt, so if you've got the time and the money, go forth and watch beauty burn.
12th Oct 2000