Star-Crossed Lovers
Federico García Lorca’s poetic tragedy Blood Wedding is positively operatic in its depiction of scalding passion, desperate romance and lethal jealousy. So it’s no surprise that it’s now become a folk opera at the hands of two alumnae of the New England Youth Theatre. It’s also fitting that that troupe—no twee children’s theater, but a conservatory that trains young people with grown-up material like Shakespeare—would be drawn to this twist on the Romeo and Juliet theme. Lorca’s 1932 play was part of a projected “trilogy of the Spanish earth” that went unfinished when he was assassinated by fascist militia at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The story of a festering blood feud and vendetta rekindled by two lovers from hostile families has been newly translated by Jessica Callahan Gelter with music by Lynn Mahoney Rowan. It’s performed this weekend by NEYT alums and directed, again fittingly, by Eric Bass of Sandglass Theater, the puppet troupe that bridges the world of kids and adults.
June 21-23, $5-$12, New England Youth Theatre, 100 Flat St., Brattleboro, info at neyt.org, reservations neytalumnishow@gmail.com.
—Chris Rohmann
