YERMA. To 23 September.
London
YERMA
by Federico Garcia Lorca translated by Frank McGuinness
Arcola Theatre 27 Arcola Street E8 2DJ To 23 September 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Sun 7pm Mat Sat 3pm
Post-show discussion 16 Sept 3pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7503 1646
www.arcolatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 September
An unmissable Yerma.
Arguably Kathryn Hunter should have played Yerma some years ago when she’d have been closer in age to, though still noticeably older than, her happily pregnant young neighbour Maria. Yerma desperately wants to be a mother yet has to fondly admire someone else’s child. Hunter’s painfully swallowed agony before congratulating Maria tells her whole tale.
It would, though, have been unthinkable not to have this production, and it couldn’t have come earlier. Director Helena Kaut-Howson builds on her Manchester production 3 years back, fresh-thinking the play as a descent into madness amid a battle of life and death. Hunter’s vocal range, from high-pitched pleading to the firm low notes of desire, her arms held expressively out, devastatingly explore Yerma’s emotions.
Like any good descent into darkness it starts lightly. Yerma wakes from a day-dream full of energy and apparent optimism. Yet Antonio Gil Martinez’s Juan brushes her away as he prepares for work. He’s a hard-working, prosperous agricultural labourer; emotional sterility is offset by comparative material prosperity.
Nor does Yerma’s mutual affection with neighbour Victor (Vincenzo Nicoli a gentle bear) become openly expressive. But it’s as he moves away Yerma begins her downward spiral using pagan and Christian ritual in her search for a child, finally rejecting her husband’s sexual advances in a deranged mix-up of husband and child, wishing to suckle as she pushes life out.
Yerma’s descent to distraction is played out vividly against the spectacle of religious rites, but even more against another life/death skirmish with the clothes-washing women, full of life’s energy, spraying water as they beat and fold the clothes, in aural battle with the 2 gloomily black-clad sisters Juan’s brought to watch over Yerma (who takes on their black).
Laura Richmond and Caroline Kilpatrick, tall, humourless figures following Yerma’s every step, beat and scrub with rhythmic lashings and fusillades, turning sheets and stones into imagined artillery. Kaut-Howson’s theatrical flair always intensifies Yerma’s dramatic fate on the spare Arcola stage, where designer Lilja Blumenfeld incorporates the building’s metal pillar, placing by it a pond (or grave) of black which intensifies further this truly sensational production.
Yerma: Kathryn Hunter
Young Shepherd/Male Mask: Gary Carr
Child: Umit Caglayan/Nura Ibrahim
Juan: Antonio Gil Martinez
Maria: Paula O’Donohue
Victor: Vincenzo Nicoli
Pagan Woman: Joy Elias Rilwan
Good Girl: Rachel Karafistan
Wild Girl: Maya Sondhi
Dolores: Anna Lindup
6th Washerwoman/Female Mask: Yvonne Wanders
4th Washerwoman: Shobu Kapoor
Sisters-in-Law: Laura Richmond, Caroline Kilpatrick
Director: Helena Kaut-Howson
Designer: Lilja Blumenfeld
Lighting: Gerry Jenkinson
Sound: Dan Thomason
Composer/Musical Director: Tayo Akinbode
Choreographer: Sian Williams
2006-09-12 11:38:43