A tale of lust, love and betrayal, Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding’ is one of the most gripping and exciting plays I have read. I often don’t like reading plays as I find that their vivid meanings can not be fully explained in the short paraphrased stage directions, however I couldn’t put Blood Wedding ... Read review
Advantages: Beautifully written, full of passion and Fatality Disadvantages: It all can depend on what translation you get
...directions, however I couldn’t put Blood Wedding down.
I must say now that this next part of the review contains some spoilers, although I knew what was going to happen before I read it and still found it brilliant and shocking.
Lorca himself grew up in rural Spain, and this upbringing can clearly be seen to influence his later work, especially in Blood Wedding. The play is set in rural Spain where the ... ...is a bad translation. As Blood Wedding is originally written in Spanish, it is important to make sure that you get a good translation in order to fully appreciate the language and so that the text still makes sense. I have seen that some translations may have entire sentences different to others. The translation I have got is brilliant. It is the Methuen Student Edition translated by Gwynne Edwards. Out of the other versions I have seen in my class, ... more
A tale of lust, love and betrayal, Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding’ is one of the most gripping and exciting plays I have read. I often don’t like reading plays as I find that their vivid meanings can not be fully explained in the short paraphrased stage directions, however I couldn’t put Blood Wedding down.
I must say now that this next part of the review contains some spoilers, although I knew what was going to happen before I read it and still found it brilliant and shocking.
Lorca himself grew up in rural Spain, and this upbringing can clearly be seen to influence his later work, especially in Blood Wedding. The play is set in rural Spain where the land is dry and therefore goof, fertile land is sort after and very valuable. The story starts with the Bridegroom attempting to leave his mother to go to the vineyards. This causes a great deal of stress to her as he is her last remaining family member, as her husband and other son were killed in violent knife attacks by the Felix family. When it comes to light that her precious son is to marry, she is shocked to discover that before her son, the Bride had another lover, Leonardo, of the Felix family. This creates great animosity between the two women, even more so when Leonardo turns up to their wedding with his new wife and young family. When it is discovered that both Leonardo and the Bride are missing after the wedding, the Bridegroom storms off in a jealous rage, swearing to take revenge. We find the wayward couple in a forest where they are joined by personifications of the moon and death. The moon takes the shape of a young wood cutter dressed in white while death is depicted as an old beggar woman, dressed in dark rags. While the Bride and Leonardo Hide, these two mysterious characters confer and decide their fate, as well as the fate of the vengeful Bridegroom. The couple realise that it will be the moon that will give them away so they try to avoid its light, but to no avail. The moon rises up, leading the angry, jealous Bridegroom to them. A battle ensues and both men are killed.
The opening of the play truly sets up the character of the mother as a very lonely and scared human being. Her stuttered and repeated words show that although she is completely normal, her grief from past losses have not yet left her and still haunt her dreams as well as her everyday life.
My favourite part of the play is the heated and emotional conversation between the Bride and the Mother after the funeral of her last son. It is so well written and beautifully poetic. One can not help but feel empathy for both characters, however it is the mothers pain filled words that really got to me. The way Lorca has managed to so accurately describe the grief felt after the loss of a loved one is amazing, and the fact that it can be translated into an entirely different language and still hold poignancy, meaning and emotion truly shows the brilliance of the language.
I also feel that the scene with the beggar woman and the moon is, although very surreal, a vital and interesting way of explaining a very complex plot. The moons speech is almost written in song and encourages you to read with a rhythm which is an interesting break from traditional play dialogue.
The only thing that may let this play down is a bad translation. As Blood Wedding is originally written in Spanish, it is important to make sure that you get a good translation in order to fully appreciate the language and so that the text still makes sense. I have seen that some translations may have entire sentences different to others. The translation I have got is brilliant. It is the Methuen Student Edition translated by Gwynne Edwards. Out of the other versions I have seen in my class, I believe that this is the best translation as it has kept the beautiful fluidity of the language. It also has a brilliant life history of Lorca, who led a very interesting life himself, as well as a well written commentary on the play, notes and pictures at the end. The play itself is very short but the book is well worth buying. It is £8.99 (or there abouts)
I would recommend this play to any drama lover, any one who has an interest in non-British playwrights, or anyone who just wants a really good read. I would be happy to spend a lot of time analysing and rereading it, and I bet I would find a new meaning behind it every time I did.
Advantages: Poetic language; emotive plot; stylised characters Disadvantages: Beauty of language might be marred by bad translation
As the title suggests, this is a play steeped in blood, passion, and death - written by one of the most poetic playwrights of the Twentieth Century. Federico Garcia Lorca is probably Spain’s most celebrated dramatist, and I have always felt that ‘Blood Wedding’ is his finest play.
The story is not a complex one – in fact it is almost archetypal in its simplicity: on her wedding night, a young bride elopes with her lover, ... ...and a knife duel takes place between him and Leonardo in which both are killed. The shamed bride returns to face the fury of the bridegroom’s mother.
Although the story is not a particularly original one, there are two additional elements that mark this play as exceptional. The first is the way that the playwright utilises personifications of natural phenomena. Lorca chooses to embody the Moon as a young woodcutter dressed in white, and similarly ...
Amadahn 15.03.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca
Advantages: Engrossing, beautifully crafted language Disadvantages: none
...about a love triangle and blood feud between two Spanish families in the heart of the Spanish countryside. There is a wonderful irony to this play in that Lorca, who is beyond doubt and exceptional writer, was actually homosexual and wrestled against the Spanish cultural norms of the day. The tensions he experienced are clearly evident throughout the book.
Lorca begins by introducing the key characters and building the tensions between family members ... ...to your word.
The beauty of this book is that it is a story about life, about choices and above all about the consequences of the decisions you make……………….
If you have never had the pleasure of seeing or reading Lorca’s Blood Wedding, I would strongly recommend it. ...
tastymorsel 26.08.2004
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca
Advantages: A well-paced, thrilling and beautifully written and crafted play Disadvantages: There are no disadvantages with Lorca
Federico Garcia Lorca's homosexuality led him to a place of solitude where he developed a particularly poetic quality of observation. 'Blood Wedding' highlights his genius, perhaps more than any of his other works. It is a story of lust, love, jealously and anger. It reveals what can happen when we allow pride to go unchecked. Perhaps, most importantly, it draws our attention to the cesspit of hypocricy that broods under the surface of so-called ... ...the Spanish stage. He had grown tired of the 'realism' with which it was beset. He wanted to do for the stage what Dali was doing for pictures. Hence, in 'Blood Wedding' we see groundbreaking innovation. The moon, for instance becomes a character who hauntingly bewails her solitude - surely a product of Lorca's own sense of isolation - and finds it easy to make friends with death. However, the innovations sit alongside more established, indeed ancient, ...
with_it 13.06.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca
Advantages: passion and blood Disadvantages: english translation of spanish play
Blood wedding, is fantastic as an A level piece of performance for any teachers out there. The students quickly get to love it as it has so much sex and death in it and they find the poetry and lyricism of the piece with ease. Our approach for unit 5 owed much to The Godfather film and we transported the action to Sicilly. The father became the Mafia Don and it all flowed very easily from there, with ring kissing and allegiances owed to the ruling ... ...setting. The symbolism of blood is heavy throughout the whole piece, and the encounters between parents and children will resonate as much with that which is left unsaid as the spoken words exchanged. We staged the performance using promenade theatre (the audience walks around following the actors as they move about different sets for each scene) using three areas and standing the audience in a taped off quadrange Shadow theatre was used for the ...
bella44 31.05.2006
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca
Product Information for "Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca" »
Product details
Type
Play
Title
Blood Wedding
Author
Federico Garcia Lorca
ISBN
0571190065; 1852243554
Manufacturer's product description
Ted Hughes captures the violence and pathos of Lorca's original story. Based on a bride who ran away with the son of an enemy family, this work investigates desire, depression and the constraints of the rural Spanish community in which the play is rooted.
Compare Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca to other similar Plays »
