Fall Mainstage Production: “Blood Wedding”

An eerie dripping noise fills Fisher Theater in the opening moments of this weekend’s mainstage play, Blood Wedding. Red lights flash across the stage and the audience quickly recognizes the sanguine image: trickling blood.This opening scene is a swift introduction to the haunting effect of the seven-part tragedy. The unsettling tone whispers its presence in every scene until the final moments of the play: alarming off-pitch screaming as the lights fade to black. The Blood Wedding premiered the evening of Friday, Nov. 6 and performances were held on Saturday and Sunday as well.Blood Wedding is a Spanish play—originally titled Bodas De Sangre—about the quarrel between two men over a bride, and the violent insanity that ensues. Conflict and tension abound through the entire plot, between the bride and her two lovers as well as between the two suitors themselves. Blood Wedding’s poetic imagery— knives, wild horses and a personified moon—hauntingly render the human themes of lust, love and disobedience.The plotline of Blood Wedding is intricate, even in its original language. Modern Languages instructor Elena Gosalvez-Blanco and English instructor Todd Hearon worked together to translate the original work of 20th century Spanish playwright Frederico Garcia Lorca. As the translation was done authentically and beautifully, it was easy for the audience to get lost in some moments of the plot. “It was definitely intriguing, but I didn’t fully understand the story’s resolution until a cast member explained it to me,” upper Leila Connolly said.Senior Keji Oladinni, who played the groom’s mother, said that “it takes a really good director and cast to put it to life and get the plot to be understandable. I think we did pretty well with that.”Although some audience members didn’t fully grasp the storyline, they still praised the acting. “The actors did a phenomenal job playing their characters and the performance had a freshness to it,” upper Timur Luke said.Hearon, who directed the play, was impressed with the actors’ skill in executing such a difficult piece of theater. “The cast worked hard to rise to the challenges of this particular type of drama—which can be quite strange and mysterious in places,” he said.The greatest hurdle for some of the actors and actresses was discovering and understanding their characters. To immerse herself in the character, Oladinni tested out numerous different accents. “I really wanted to give her [the groom’s mother] a personality that was clear and noticeable, and the most natural thing that came to me was attempting a ‘Spanish’ accent.” Oladinni explained that this exercise allowed her to immerse herself in the “motherly, feisty character” that she was meant to portray.In these rehearsals, lead actors Alyse Clinton and Raul Galvan who portrayed a passionate couple were “literally tied by the waist so that they could have better chemistry,” upper and stage manager Nada Zohayr said.Thanks to set designer Cary Wendell’s ingenuity, the backdrop was complementary to the plot and mobile enough for efficient and simple scene changes by the crew.Wendell also improvised and altered the original coloring of the set. Although the playwright calls for a yellow room, a pink room and blue room in the opening act, the graytone scale Wendell created allowed the lighting designer to effectively generate the same effect with light instead.“The costumes, lights, sound and set laid the whole foundation for the show, and allowed the actors to soar into all of the places the script’s words were taking them.” Hearon said.The actors soared even higher with their performances. “I noticed that on the performance on Saturday the actors began to put their own spin into their lines,” stage crew member lower Claudia Blanco said.This fluidity was perhaps due to the audience’s lively mood. “Saturday night the audience laughed at almost everything, which surprised the cast because we had forgotten the humor in some places through our numerous practices,” lower and cast member Daisy Tichenor said. She appreciated the laughter for giving the actors unexpected “confidence and energy.”As Clinton said, “This play is full of surprises.” The story carves an unconventional path when it diverges from the classic dilemma of lust versus marriage. Instead of the trite situation of seduction out of marriage, the bride is in love with two men for different reasons.“She feels anger, she feels lust, she feels love, she feels jealousy and happiness and sadness and torment. There are so many of these real human emotions,” Clinton said of her character.With such an emotionally complex performance, the directors and cast struggled to find a satisfying ending. As Clinton describes, “We weren’t really sure how we were going to end it. We read it [the script] and saw that it said ‘keening’ so we imagined a sobbing noise.”During a rehearsal, in an archetypal stroke of genius, Hearon proposed a new idea for the ending: to have the voices of the characters left on stage devolve from a drone into a scream. Clinton said, “As Mr. Hearon led us through the drone and we launched into the scream, the entire theater—the techies, the people in the shop—the whole building went dead silent and there was a murmur of excitement. We realized that shock of that scream of torture and sadness was the perfect ending for this tragedy.”