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Three Plays: Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba
by Federico Garcia Lorca
I bought this book yesterday while
at Green Apple. In fact, I bought a few books--there goes my allowance!
But seriously, I decided to take this small anthology with me on my
commute to read.
So far I'm reading the
Introduction. I'm a big believer in reading the Introduction to books.
This particular introduction was written by Christopher Maurer. I'm
only a few pages into it, but I already feel like I've hit pay dirt for
it turns out Lorca was very much concerned with theatre's impact on
society.
A
deep concern for social justice is evident even in Lorca's earliest
works...by 1935 Lorca had declared himself an "enthusiastic, devoted
follower of the theatre of social action," and defined theatre as "a
school of laughter and lamentation, an open tribunal where the people
can introduce old and mistake mores as evidence, and can use living
examples to explain eternal norms of the heart...The theatre is an
extremely useful instrument for the edification of a country, and the
barometer that measures its greatness or declines. A sensitive
theatre, well oriented in all its branches, from tragedy to vaudeville,
can alter a people's sensibility in just a few years, while a theatre
where hooves have taken the place of wings can cheapen and lull to
sleep an entire nation." (xxii, Introduction by Maurer)
Love it! And Lorca goes on to say that, "Theatre [is] poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair."
My own thoughts about poetry and theatre are very similar to Lorca's.
Wow. I have a new theatre/poetry hero. Especially with this final quote
I have for you.
Without ever theorizing about poetic
drama, Lorca knew that it did not necessarily entail the use of verse.
It was, simply, drama written by poets ("The theatre which has endured
has always been that of poets").
-M
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