Yerma! No, Yer Ma!

I didn't watch all of the Spanish Embassy's Kusum Haider-directed production of Lorca's Yerma. It played at the Stein Auditorium at the Habitat Center late last month, and I was thankful for the air-conditioning. I watched three scenes, the first three, and they were adequate. I don't know what they were adequate for, really - they were adequate for me to stop caring about air-conditioning. And in that sense I suppose it was an important play for me; air-conditioning is a close concern.

I should say at the outset that I have not read Lorca's Yerma, and I have no comment to make on the historical background, the authenticity of costumes and scenery, the singing, or any such like matters. I don't know enough about them and I don't think they're gravely important to understanding or enjoying a play, unless the play's about something overwhelmingly inescapable, like the World Wars. The most I could say is that I know a little Spanish (or I used to), but what the hell does that have to do with anything? Well, nothing.

The set was simple, and the design was promising I thought. There was something that looked like a haycart on stageleft, there were platforms of various levels, there were wooden benches and shelves (I think) on which were placed other properties - all of them black or brown. Now I've thought about this particular aspect for a while: I'm not opposed to challenging conventional idiom; meaning that all sets need not be brightly painted boudoirs or gaily bustling streets or any other kind of setting made loud and solid and real with larger-than-life colours or effects. All sets need not be puffing up their chests on stage, like things in children's pop-up books, and this set certainly wasn't vulgar. It was simple and basic and solid. But perhaps that was the problem. It looked too immovable, too static; and the action that occurred in and around it was much louder and very obvious.
The actors didn't seem comfortable with the set: often sitting a little awkwardly, or far too comfortably, working through it physically at a pace that tried to be dramatic but came off as contrived, perhaps because of the effort. It seemed that the direction the action had received ran contrary to the mood of the setting. Things were dull and unglamorous (in the way that new houses adopting 'Colonial' facades look Colonial), and that made sense to me because it was presenting a version of peasant life. However, the peasants were full of lusty life and loud voices (cannot fault them on volume) and louder performances and really white clothing. I mean, really really white clothing.

The story is that Yerma, a young wife, is childless and upset that her husband avoids sleeping with her, preventing her from embracing the only identity that would give her life any meaning at all, that of Mother.
In the first scene, she sees her husband off to the fields, and then bittersweetly examines how empty her happy life is - she has a kind husband who she likes well enough, but they have no issue, so woe is her. A cheerful unmarried bachelor shepherd, who she had a crush on eons ago, tells her that the only reason she doesn't have children is that she's not trying hard enough. As Scene One ends, she says through tear-welling eyes, yes, I've got to TRY.
This last word should be echoing in your mind now because of the emphasis that was put on it. I imagine Lorca might have meant it to be a little more wry, but I haven't read the play so I don't know what he meant. But if he meant to be sentimental... he should have stuck to poetry. (Although, I think he wrote plays for a living, so... for anyone feeling righteous about the fact that I'm being irreverent, heh, remember that Lorca is an immortal poet and I'm no one, so he gets the last laugh anyway.) I'd like to mention that the character of the cheerful bachelor shepherd I identified immediately as either the love-interest/coveter-of-neighbourhood-wives or the village idiot. It turned out he was both. He was made of wood. Not a bad singing voice, though.
Fine, I'll compromise - he was the harmonium.
In the second scene, while wading through a forest of tall grass, Yerma meets the 'Old Woman' who's had a lot of sex all her life but is unwilling to tell Yerma any secrets. Yerma is hopelessly naive and the Old Woman gives her half-baked ideas about desire and adultery and then leaves. A few other girls come giggling into this clearing, and Yerma reminds the flakiest of the lot of the latter's duties as a mother and the girl runs home to take care of the baby she's left there. But, not before she delivers all her lines to the audience. Yerma then sits down to eat with a friend right there in the woods, and over lunch she tries desperately to have a conversation. Except this friend makes the weirdest jokes I have ever heard every two sentences, and then falls into a fit of laughter like the Wicked Witch of the West. It was like we were watching The Lion King and the hyena queen had taken over. And it was the exact same laughter every time. Bloody uncanny. Anyway, the friend leaves and Yerma sings a duet with her cheerful bachelor shepherd. He comes singing from off-stage and of course she's surprised it's him, and when they talk, she feels a connection. Then her husband shows up and tells her to go home.
The last scene I watched was a washerwoman scene. There were a fair number of people on stage, all dressed in white, arguing and laughing and generally being naughty gossipy village women washing clothes at the stream. They say that Yerma and Victor, the bachelor shepherd, meet alone a lot and that proves that they're having sex (because everyone knows that Yerma's husband Juan is not having sex with her - he's either shy or sexless, I couldn't tell from the story). And they sing and laugh and argue and fight - "how dare you insult my friend, you foul-mouthed goatlover!" scratch hiss (except pretend-scratch and pretend-hiss, so really just half-complete unmotivated motions that begin in earnest only when the combatants have been separated) - and complain in their immaculately white costumes until... well, I don't know, I left.

Of course, I'll tell you why. It was like a high-school play. The cues were slow, the speech stunted, the performances badly directed (and some were bad dissemblers), and the tone of the play lacked abstraction with respect to the themes. They were all bound together superficially in a bundle and dropped. It felt like the director had looked at the whole knot of things Lorca had given her to play with, decided she liked all of them, and threw them all in without doing the hard work of presenting them with some integrity - it'll work out, she might've thought to herself, and done nothing further. The performances lacked commitment, but I'm being overharsh when I say this. I mean that it seemed like the characters in Lorca's script, being a hundred times and spaces removed from who and what we are, were perceived as being distant and lost; and the expanse between us sitting here at the Habitat Center New Delhi and them Spanish peasants from hundreds of years ago was bridged by a poor, poor engineer. It seemed lazily constructed and was completely unsophisticated.
A play or a production does not have to be incredibly intellectually sophisticated, but it needs to show some sensitivity to not only the actors but also the audience. It seemed to me that the play was reduced from a work of an artist to an impression of a trite What I Did On My Holidays, Isn't That A Charming Tale It Has The Whole Panorama Of Human Experience In It! It felt like the whole craft hadn't just been disrespected but also disregarded. I had the distinct impression that afterwards, at the cast party or whatever, the performance would be forgotten, and the conversation would find its way to whatever conversation is made at high-society cocktail parties - the occasion would be that friends, family or lovers were acting in a play, indulging in a hobby. Forget that a piece of creative work was exhibited, or that talents were exploited to create it, or that commitments were made to deliver Lorca's Yerma to an audience, a community. Forget that the work of the most famous name on the brochure, 'Lorca' was used for what can roughly be called a parade; or that repeating these motions over and over and over again in all likelihood stunts the sensibilities of a willing audience to what they remember seeing or doing when they were adolescents; or that watching the play is neither infuriating nor enjoyable, but merely bland. Forget all that. I suppose it's worth forgetting anyway.

But, in the afterplay, I was treated to a Peanut Butter Malt at the American Diner (to make me feel better) and I must say that that particular frosty beverage is just incredible.

Now I know this is not the ideal theatre review - it might be a bit Gonzo - but this is an experiment that I will continue. To articulate as clearly as possible why I liked or did not like something. People don't do that often enough.