Preview
THE LORCA TRILOGY
Maple Salsa Theatre
Starring Joyce Doolittle, Jennifer Andersen, Kristin Eveleigh and Sean Montgomery
Written by Federico García Lorca
Directed by Javier Vilalta
Runs May 12 to 22
New Dance/Theatre
"We’re all out of our comfort zones," says theatre veteran Joyce Doolittle of the work being done on Maple Salsa Theatre’s Lorca Trilogy.
According to Doolittle, the actors in the project are facing challenging material "in the best possible way – in the way Shakespeare is, in the way Molière is, in the way any classics are. And (Lorca) is very poetic."
While Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936) isn’t a well-known playwright to Calgary audiences, his work is famous throughout much of the world. The great Spanish dramatist and poet dealt with issues of social conflict on a very human level.
"One doesn’t get the chance too often to really (be) emotional (as an actor)," says Doolittle of performing the work of Lorca. "I think contemporary theatre tends to be full of sex and violence, but not a lot of full-out, genuine emotion expressed beautifully."
The reasons for Doolittle’s involvement in the trilogy are twofold. She wanted to work with Lorca’s texts, but she also wanted to work with Maple Salsa Theatre’s young Mexican-Canadian director, Javier Vilalta.
"I’d seen a couple things he’d directed and I thought he was a really good director," she says.
In fact, Doolittle was introduced to Maple Salsa’s work in 2001, while adjudicating the Calgary Regional One-Act Play Festival at the Pumphouse Theatres. Maple Salsa won the festival’s awards for best drama and best director with their production of Heiner Müller’s Quartet.
The Lorca Trilogy consists of the plays Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba. The first two are short plays that will be presented together as a double bill. The third is a full-length work and will run separately on alternate days.
Doolittle points out that the same group of actors appears in all three plays. The company is comprised of many students and former students from the University of Calgary, where Doolittle herself taught drama for many years. Doolittle plays Bernarda Alba in The House of Bernarda Alba. "In Yerma I play a lascivious old lady," she adds with enthusiasm.
Director Vilalta explains that the three Lorca plays are linked, not by plot, but by themes.
"It is very important, because when you see them, the themes progress," he says. "All the conflicts and all the social commentaries that the playwright (presents) come out of marriage, surprisingly. All the things that go wrong happen because of marriage – all that is about to happen, or has happened or cannot happen."
While audiences may enjoy the plays separately, Vilalta felt it was important to present Lorca’s trilogy together.
"Back home (in Mexico), we don’t see them separately," he says. "Every time they present (the plays), they present all three of them."
Maple Salsa creates its theatre using a different methodology from most Canadian companies. The rehearsal process of a show becomes as important as its presentation, and this is evident in the Lorca Trilogy.
Vilalta says he likes to push the abilities of his actors in rehearsal. "I love to ask them to do things that I know would probably challenge them."
Those challenges can be emotional, intellectual and physical. Vilalta’s staging of Blood Wedding, a play often referred to as the Spanish Romeo and Juliet, includes physically demanding movement for many of the actors, which the director has adapted from Spanish flamenco dancing.
In Calgary, where most theatre companies produce contemporary plays that are Anglo-American in origin, Maple Salsa Theatre is a rare exception. "The mandate is to produce contemporary plays that are not Canadian, not from the States," says Vilalta. "We’ve done plays from a lot of countries."
The company is also known for presenting material that deals with violence, sexual abuse, political conflict and other themes that audiences may find disturbing.
"People here are not used to it," admits Vilalta. "I used to do theatre the way I did back home (in Mexico) and people here found it very heavy. I know the last play I did (Sarah Kane’s Cleansed), people were very shocked by it."
That interaction with the audience is the final ingredient of Maple Salsa’s theatre process. "What really bothers me is when people are indifferent to plays," says Vilalta. He feels he’s done his job as an artist if the play provokes thought or challenges people: "If they are upset, if they were touched by it – in a good or bad way."
Blood Wedding and Yerma run May 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 and 22. The House of Bernarda Alba runs May 13, 15, 16, 19, 21 and 22. |
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