When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to see Constellation Theatre Company's new production of Blood Wedding there were a few vampire jokes made. Since pop culture's craze for vampires had not yet been satiated, this was understandable, but Federico García Lorca's tale of love gone wrong does not have any vampires. Instead, it tells a tale of an all-consuming passion that takes over young people in rural Spain and reverberates through their families and town. And while characters in the present are responsible for their own actions, it is clear the simmering tensions and violence of the past have cast a long shadow over them.
Lorca, who was born in 1898, was both a poet and a playwright, and Blood Wedding is a play with poetic sensibilities. Lorca practices word economy--his characters do not launch into long speeches to give us background. Instead, as people often do in real life, they make reference to but do not always fully explain hurtful events of the past. And in the present, their words are full of imagery and symbolism. The play was inspired by a true story and Lorca takes what could have been mere gossip (the story of a runaway bride) and delves into its complexity.
In the play, the moon is personified and as wistful and sensual woman and in this version of Blood Wedding, the specter of death is ever-present, watching and waiting for just the right time to make a move, with the moon's help.
As they so often do, Constellation Theatre makes excellent use of their small space. Music interludes allow them to change scenes and revolving doors turn to indicate new spaces and they cleverly invoke a forest without using a single tree. Plus the actors--especially Deidra LaWan Starnes, Mia Branco and Julie Garner (making their Constellation Theatre debuts as Mother, Girl and Servant)--keep you hooked.
You can see Blood Wedding at Constellation Theatre until March 4, 2012.
Source/1835 14th Street NW
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