MARIANA PINEDA. T0 19 August.

London

MARIANA PINEDA
by Federico Garcia Lorca translated by Gwynne Edwards

Arcola Theatre 27 Arcola Street E8 2DJ To 18 August 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 55min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7503 1646
www.arcolatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 August

Early play begins Lorca season with poetic staging and prosaic performances.
For his second play, Lorca went back a century from 1925 to historical events involving a young woman (married and widowed as a teenager) who defied an authority similar to the Primo de Rivera dictatorship running 1920s Spain. Mariana’s specific offence was embroidering a liberal flag, but she also refused to give the names of dissident contacts.

Lorca intensifies Mariana’s circumstances, compounding historical arrest and murder with sexual oppression. Police Chief Pedrosa offers her life in return for sex. In remaining silent, Lorca’s Mariana protects her dissident lover, who she is sure will try and rescue her. Late on, she learns he and his comrades have left the country, regardless of her.

Perhaps at this stage Lorca hadn’t fully worked out the combination of his poetic tragedy with the factual grime of historical events. It’s hard to say from Max Key’s production, which uses the Arcola’s space well – an L-shaped audience looking through 2 sides of Mariana’s room, revealed in Jon Bausor’s set as apparently solid walls that become curtains, which are then drawn aside. A mysterious figure seems to talk to Mariana through one of the other walls – nowhere is ultimately solid and safe.

For the last act, when Mariana’s effectively imprisoned in a convent, its candle-bearing nuns neither hostile nor protective, but shadowy lamenting figures, the domestic comfort suggested by table and chairs vanishes, leaving an empty, stone-flagged space.

Mariana’s first entry singles her out as silence falls on other young women’s playful irresponsibility. But Key fails to match these visual and directorial touches with performances sustaining either the urgency of events or the poetic intensity Lorca provides.

Performers haven’t all accommodated the Arcola’s acoustic, and they’re too often underpowered. Generally, the older performers are more successful, though they tend to have the less demanding roles. Pandora Colin’s Mariana manages natural speech inflections well enough, but tends to physical and vocal rigidity in the heightened language. However, problems are widespread enough to make it seem this is a production where the energy’s gone into staging rather than performing.

Mariana Pineda is the opening event in the Arcola’s ‘Viva Lorca’ season, on the 70th anniversary of his murder. It runs to 23 September. Details: www.arcolatheatre.com.

Clavela: Rachel Atkins
Lucia/2nd Novice: Leila Birch
Fernando: Geoff Breton
Mariana Pineda: Pandora Colin
2nd Conspirator: Jonathan Dunstan
Amparo/1st Novice: Rachel Edwards
3rd Conspirator/Alegrito: Chris Hehir
Girl: Amy Hope, Isabelle Lock
1st Conspirator: Daniel Kanaber
Boy: Sam Lanchkin, Niall reily
Pedrosa: Patrick Lynch
Don Pedro: Ben Nathan
Angustias: Ruth Posner
Nuns: Amor Alcaraz, Kate Bailward, Gabriella Conardi, Georgina Carrigan, Joyia Fitch, Jennifer Majka, Shireen Mula, Gemma Rooke, Scarlet Sweeney, Tanya Zoeller
Guitarist: Chris Trueman

Director: Max Key
Designer: Jon Bausor
Lighting: Anna Watson
Sound: Matt Downing
Musical Director: Russell Hepplewhite
Movement: Maria Victoria Di Pace
Assistant director: Jonathan Humphreys

2006-08-08 09:32:31