Yerma

by Federico Garcia Lorca
Adapted by Peter Robel and Thomas J. Samorian

presented at
BoHo Theatre @ Heartland Studio
October 13 — November 19, 2006

Directed by Peter Robel

Produced by Elizabeth Winchester

Cast:
Kristy Hartsgrove, Alanda Coon, Matthew Pierce, Kevin Bensley, Carolyn Jenson, Kyla Brundage, Michelle Kelley, Sara McCarthy, Elizabeth Hope Morgan, and Kate Froehlich.

Federico García Lorca's tragic, dramatic poem in three acts, Yerma ("Barren"), focuses on a woman's intense need to bear a child. It was written in 1934 and first performed the same year. Yerma deals with the themes of isolation, passion and frustration. Social conventions of the period also play a large part in the play's plot, and the work functions as a critique of those mores.

Yerma is one of the three tragic plays which form Lorca's famous "Rural trilogy." The two other plays in the cycle are Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding) and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba). The trilogy similarly emphasize the submissive position of women who desire freedom in a traditional society which denies them social or sexual equality.

"The heroine holds you in her maniacal grip for the show's entire 85 minutes. The new translation/adaptation gives the story a light, unpretentious feel, yet the play's sense of inexorable tragedy remains."
-- Chicago Reader (Recommended)