Four Final Plays: Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba and Doña Rosita the Spinster and the Language of Flowers

by Federico García Lorca, A.S. Kline (Translator)

Lorca wrote more than a dozen plays, of which these later four, created in the 1930’s, are the best known and most popular. Written to support the ‘theatre of social action’, while travelling with a touring company through rural Spain, the plays employ simple but poetic language, strong passionate speech, and intense moments of action or emotion, to convey the claustrophobic life of the people. Lorca wrote: ‘Theatre is a school of tears and laughter, a forum for liberty, where people can question obsolete or erroneous social norms, and explain through living characters the eternal modes of the human heart.’ While exploring the stifling aspects of contemporary life for both the rural poor and the isolated individual, his plays also challenged the conventional roles of women in society, and allowed him to express, indirectly, his frustrations with attitudes to sexuality and homo-eroticism which affected him personally, and may have contributed to his subsequent persecution within Spain and his death.

About the Author

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) is primarily known for his poetry and plays, which opened Spanish literature of the early twentieth century to influences from the wider European literary movements, such as symbolism and surrealism. Born near Granada, he attended university there and in Madrid. His early interest in painting, music and literature led to both his first attempts at a poetic language and his deep interest in Spanish folk music and lore, and the Gypsy Ballads of 1928, expressing this interest, is perhaps his best known and most evocative collection of poems. His later poetry, escaping to some extent from this folk tradition, which he viewed as artistically limiting, expresses the vicissitudes of love and longing, and a degree of personal anguish. His mature plays, translated here, expressing socially liberal views, made him a target for the increasingly powerful right-wing forces that led to the Franco regime, and resulted in his execution by Nationalist militia in August 1936, probably on the grounds of both his socialist politics and his sexuality. His works were banned under the Franco regime until 1953. He is now regarded as, arguably, the greatest poet writing in the Spanish language of the early twentieth century.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Spanish Literature, Fiction, Classics, 20th Century, Theatre

301 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Born in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, Spain, June 5 1898; died near Granada, August 19 1936, García Lorca is one of Spain's most deeply appreciated and highly revered poets and dramatists. His murder by the Nationalists at the start of the Spanish civil war brought sudden international fame, accompanied by an excess of political rhetoric which led a later generation to question his merits; after the inevitable slump, his reputation has recovered (largely with a shift in interest to the less obvious works). He must now be bracketed with Machado as one of the two greatest poets Spain has produced in the 20th century, and he is certainly Spain's greatest dramatist since the Golden Age.

Reviews

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

Με εξαίρεση το θεατρικό Δόνια Ροσίτα η γεροντοκόρη, οι υπόλοιπες 3εις χαρακτηρίζονται ως οι τραγωδίες της ισπανικής υπαίθρου, τα 3 κορυφαία θεατρικά του Λόρκα που τον καταξίωσαν (εκτός από ποιητή και) ως θεατρικό συγγραφέα, τα οποία γράφτηκαν σε περίοδο μόλις 4 χρόνων.

Ματωμένος Γάμος (1932)
Από το πιο γνωστά του έργα αν όχι το πιο γνωστό, όπου μια νύφη κλέβεται τη νύχτα του γάμου της με τον πρώην αρραβωνιαστικό της με τραγικές συνέπειες για όλους. Τραγική φιγούρα η μάνα του γαμπρού (σαν δελτίο ειδήσεων ακούγομαι) που από τις πρώτες μόλις της φράσεις ήταν το μίσος της για τα μαχαίρια κι οτιδήποτε αιχμηρό (προοικονομία για τα τραγικά γεγονότα που θ' ακολουθήσουν). Η προτελευταία σκηνή έχει περισσότερο συμβολικό χαρακτήρα όπου παρελαύνουν χαρακτήρες σύμβολα (στη μυθοπλασία του Λόρκα) θανάτου (φεγγάρι, ζητιάνα).

Γερμα (1934)
που στα ισπανικά σημαίνει άκαρπη/άγονη. Η ιστορία μιας γυναίκας που δεν μπορεί να κάνει παιδιά κάτι που της γίνεται εμμονή. Υπάρχουν στοιχεία (διονυσιακού) παγανισμού και άρνησης ύπαρξης του θεού (κάτι που κάνει πολλούς να πιστεύουν ότι ήταν ένας από τους λόγους που συνελήφθη ο Λόρκα).

Το σπίτι της Μπερνάντας Άλμπα (1936)
ή άλλως hell on earth. Ένα σπίτι που διοικείται από την αυταρχική, βίαιη, τυραννική, φασίστρια Μπερνάντα Άλμπα. Σ' αυτό το σπίτι ευδοκιμεί το μίσος και απουσιάζουν οι αρσενικοί χαρακτήρες. Βλέπουμε την τραγική μοίρα της μικρότερης κόρης Αδέλα που τολμά να επαναστατήσει ενάντια στην καταπίεση της μάνας της και το πληρώνει με την ίδια της την ζωή. Καλό είναι να αναφέρω ότι αυτό το θεατρικό ολοκληρώθηκε όταν ήδη οι φαλαγγίτες του Φράνκο βγήκαν στην εξουσία το 1936. Φαίνονται έντονα τα στοιχεία ενός τυραννικού καθεστώτος.

Δόνια Ροσίτα η γεροντοκόρη (1935)
Αυτό το θεατρικό δεν είναι ακριβώς τραγωδία αλλά μια μελαγχολική κοινωνική ιστορία όπου η Ροσίτα περιμένει τον αγαπητικός της να επιστρέψει από την Αργεντινή. Αν ήρθε ο Γκοντό που περίμεναν ο Βλαδιμίρ και ο Εστραγκόν τότε ήρθε και ο αγαπητικός της. Το λέει και ο τίτλος: Δόνια Ροσίτα η γεροντοκόρη. Έντονο και το στοιχείο των λουλουδιών με κυριότερο το rosa mutabilis το οποίο συμβολίζει την πορεία της Ροσίτας από νέα-κόρη σε γεροντοκόρη.

In the morning, when it opens,
it's red, as red as blood;
the dew will not dare touch it
for fear for being burnt.
[πρώτη νιότη]
At midday fully opened
like coral it is hard.
The sun peers through the window
to see how bright it shines.
[ώριμη νιότη]
When the birds light on the branches
and break into their song,
and evening sinks into
the violets of the sea,
it whitens with the whiteness
of salt upon the cheek.
[ωριμότητα]
And when night plays upon
the moon's soft metal horn,
the stars step slowly forward
and the breezes drop away
then on the edge of darkness
its petals start to fall
[μαρασμός]

Υπέροχος Λόρκα για άλλη μια φορά. Ένας μεγάλος ποιητής, δραματουργός, ζωγράφος, άνθρωπος που μας τον στέρησαν οι εθνικιστές του Φράνκο.
Για τις πρώιμες κωμικοτραγωδίες του Λόρκα μπορείτε να διαβάσετε περισσότερα εδώ.

[Una Vildaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neticami, ka to ir sarakstījis vīrietis! 1930-tajos gados! Tik sarežģīti un precīzi uzrakstītas lugas par sievietēm, ka es pati nevarētu labāk izteikties. Noteikt jāizlasa vēl pēc 5., 10., 20., … gadiem

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Some things don't change. There are things locked away behind closed doors that can’t change because nobody hears them." (99)

This collection of Lorca's plays includes Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of San Bernarda Alba, and Doña Rosita the Spinster. They were all tragic and beautiful, but the best by far was Yerma, the tale of a barren woman who desperately wants a child, followed by Doña Rosita the Spinster, the story of a girl whose lover moves to Argentina while she waits for him, waits for him for years, while he eventually gets married to someone else and she's no longer Rosita but Doña Rosita.

Blood Wedding centers on a woman leaving her husband on the night of her wedding for an old lover, while San Bernarda dizzyingly zooms in on the house of a relentless landlady who controls her unmarried daughters with an iron fist, until they begin to fight amongst themselves over a man called Pepe el Romano.

This was my first experience with Lorca; I'll be collecting and reading his oeuvre (his others plays and his poetry) for sure.

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many years ago I read a Lorca play, just one, and it was very short. I can't even remember which one it was, but it wasn't any of the four masterpieces presented in this volume. I thought it was quite good but opaque, and it didn't fill me with desire to seek out more of Lorca's work. Therefore I am grateful that I plucked this book off a library shelf on a whim, because the plays inside are superb.

Blood Wedding is passionate, dark and violent, but there is also a strange dreamy ambience about the play that came as a surprise to me (the moon is a character, for example). As for Yerma it reminded me a little of another 'play' I read years ago: Burning Bright by John Steinbeck, even though the two works are very different in terms of rhythm, pacing and language, but the obsessive theme (fertility) is pursued in both with alarming, overriding intensity. The House of Bernarda Alba is the nastiest of the plays in this book: the title character is an abominable domestic tyrant and the claustrophobia of the situation she creates around her is almost unbearable.

My favourite of the four is the last one, Dona Rosita the Spinster, which despite the fact it is actually a tragedy has a lightheartedness about it that is genuinely uplifting. The characters are mainly sweet and appealing. It's a thoroughly engaging play.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spend a lot of time in Spain. There's a particular feeling I only get there..ghosts of the civil war dead still linger in narrow white and yellow lanes..pine scented memories of hillside retreats..escaping on the run. Those haunted ashes are to be found, of course, in the brush strokes of Picasso...and earlier national and personal turmoil in the dark paintings of Goya..
Lorca conjured that spirit..that strange Spanish heartbeat that echoes through the times..he called it "duende"...and that soul lives on in these pages. It's not drama for the sake of drama, but nothing less than the big themes of the 20th century..Freudian Gordian knots, war, sex, dreams..Macbeth-like family ambition, blood soaked and vital. Lorca was one of the many disappeared. But he never really vanished. Only physically. What remains are more than cold dead ashes.

[Amanda Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The house of Bernarda Alba was great, the play is essentially about Spain. The characters, A controlling mother, 'desperately seeking husbands'daughters and the female obsession with love and financial security. The troubles of family life are accurately portrayed, tense relationships and badly kept secrets are evident throughout. The ending is particularly interesting, and says a lot about the woman, Bernarda Alba and the societal rules they must live under as women.

[FoxClouds · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the rating for Yerma only as I have read only 1 play out of 4.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Yerma is a very short play about a married woman who is progressively becoming more and more obsessed with the desire to conceive a child. Although short, it is a very lyrical play with some poignant text.

However, I found it difficult to connect with Yerma due to the subject matter.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read Bodas de Sangre, La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Yerma, and Dona Rosita. I remembered the first two better than the second two; I'd forgotten the Housekeeper's mini-monologue in Act III, and Rosita's following.

[Heather S. Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

_the house of bernarda alba_ will haunt me forever!

[Alessandro Speciale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Primordiali e perfetti. Soprattutto Nozze di sangue e Bernarda Alba ma sono tutti straordinari

[Michael Kohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the Rural Trilogy, some of it was fairly clunky but all moving and the poetry/songs particularly powerful

[Yew San Cheah · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the newer authors I've read in recent years (3-5 years) who I consider a new master to me
wow.

Blood Wedding: 4 stars
Yerma: 4 stars
The House of Bernardo Alba: 3 stars
Doña Rosita la soltera o el lenguaje de las flores: 5 stars

Memorable Quotes (off the top of my head):

Blood Wedding:

1.
" Woodcutter 1 rang out in the dark...
Woodcutter 2 rang out in the dark...
(Then comes in)
Woodcutter 3: "Not here! "

2.
"My tongue is pierced with glass."

Yerma:
1.
"My work is in the fields, but my honour is here." - "Mi trabajo es en los campos, pero mi honra es aqui."

Doña Rosita the Spinster:
1.
"You clung onto an idea without seeing the reality, taking no heed for your future."

"You cling onto an idea, but you don't see the reality."

2.
"The earth is a mediocre planet, but we must nurture civilization."

3.
"Everyone lives as best as he knows or he can, in this everyday world."
-> reminds me of something my theatre theory professor, Professor Austin Quigley, at Columbia once said to me: "Sometimes the hardest thing is just keeping up." - He said this to me with a facial expression and tone halfway between a wink and a grimace.

Great introduction to my penguin edition with 3 plays (sin Dona Rosita)

[Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

These plays are clearly for the time in which Lorca wrote them. All are set in the Andalusian countryside and appear to deal primarily with the stifling role women find themselves in. For them, the Spanish heat is symbolic of their repressed desires, for sex, for children, for freedom (from drudgery). Probably the most famous of these, "Bernada Alba," has all of these themes. The plays themselves are clearly modeled on classical forms and, frankly, don't translate wiell for the modern reader, given their highly stylized almost stilted presentation.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had virtually no expectations for this collection, as I’d never heard anyone talk about Lorca’s plays. Despite the lack of recognition, it was everything I could have hoped for. Each play was striking and unique, with dark undercurrents and dramatic flair making the collection perfectly autumnal.

[Sahjin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read only blood wedding for my drama class.
Writing was very lyrical and poetic at times, was quite confusing to follow but was a quick read.

[Gemma Vouriot]

My favourite playwright! - still have to read Bernarda Alba and Dona Rosita

[Cliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lorca's last, greatest and most mythopoetic plays in one volume. Beautiful.