Emma Nihill Alcorta is the director of a new adaptation of the Spanish masterpiece Blood Wedding, running at the Oxford Playhouse.
With flamenco rhythms and Spanish soul, our passionate ensemble and live, onstage band are bringing a bold new adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s Spanish tragedy, Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre), to the Oxford Playhouse.
We started with a fresh translation of the text. There are many beautiful translations of Blood Wedding, but I was determined to develop something tailor-made which celebrated the melding of twentieth-century Andalucía with twenty-first century Oxford, preserving sections of Lorca’s original Spanish poetry (accompanied by surtitles), whilst radically reimagining certain characters and sections of dialogue. I was also resolved to make the English text sing on its own terms with its own voice.
Alongside this translation, Elsa Vass-de-Zomba has created a transcendent, flamenco-inspired score. Combined with fiery choreography by Carlos Araujo and Lucy Williams, we’ve made a Blood Wedding that dives into the rich sound and movement of Lorca’s Andalucía. As much about joy as it is about tragedy, our production is a celebration of cultural exchange. Blending radically adapted, contemporary English dialogue with Spanish folklore, song, and flashes of Lorca’s verse, our band and 22-strong ensemble delve into the endlessly relevant themes of love in the face of hate, and courage in the face of violence; they speak as urgently to us as they did to Federico García Lorca.
As a half-Spanish, half-Australian actor, I’ve been thrilled by the amount of enthusiasm I’ve encountered for bilingual, cross-cultural theatre here in Oxford. When I hear English and Spanish intermingling in rehearsals and meetings, or listen to drafts of Elsa’s score, I’m overjoyed that this kind of storytelling is not only possible, but emphatically welcomed by so many people. Our ensemble and creative team represent an incredible blend of Hispanophone and Anglophone perspectives that have combined to make this production powerful and truly beautiful.
A 20th century Romeo and Juliet, Lorca’s masterpiece asks what it means to love dangerously and deeply, and what it takes to defy tradition. Presented with lyricism and love, this is a production for our times:
Andalucía. Summer. 1932.
Under the burning Andalusian sun, a woman is set to marry a man she does not love. Tables are laid, vows are spoken, and the woman condemns herself to a traditional life walled inside a house of stone. But another man has been riding to her window in the dead of night, calling her name on the wind, and she begins to wonder if the burden of tradition might be too heavy to bear. If passion drove you mad, would you risk it all?
Written in the summer of 1932, Lorca’s acclaimed rural tragedy is a story of arid land and tough people, where societal expectations are rigidly defined and hidden yearnings simmer under the surface of convention. From the pen of an internationally revered Spanish playwright, Blood Wedding is a masterpiece of exquisite poetry and raw human longing.
Our brand-new company Full Moon Theatre is shaking things up with a razor-sharp adaptation of a Spanish masterpiece that demands to be staged again and again.
Come join the dance. We’ll see you at the Playhouse!
The final performances of Blood Wedding will be at 14:30 and 19:30 on Saturday 7th June at the Oxford Playhouse.
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