In the main auditorium at Nottingham Playhouse, the in-house youth theatre take centre stage in their version of Lorca’s 1933 play, Blood Wedding. When entering the audience are met by dark shapes, bodies enveloped in black cloth, that then writhe and dance by way of a prologue. It is this cloth which is one of the most striking elements of the production with great swathes of it crossing the performance space and slowly unwrapped throughout the story, each layer removed revealing the next step in the tale. The movement direction is crisp and precise but at several points it does little to progress the story. The motif where Death, played as an ominous Baron Samedi by Matthew Morrison, and Moon, Gemma Caseley-Kirk, enact the fatal duel between the two male protagonists works beautifully but equally the mechanical workers in the first act serve only to upstage. The combination of live and recorded sound is imbalanced and the transposing of the woodcutters into three travelling Mariachi, whilst a neat idea, doesn’t really come off. However, there are strong performances all-round in the ensemble with Chloe McKiernan (The Bride), Imogen O'Sullivan (The Servant Woman) and Maria Fafouti (The Wife of Leonardo) the pick of the bunch and any moments of rushedness or swallowed lines easily attributable to first night nerves of such a large stage. It is the innovative use of material, both cloth and literary, that strikes the most about the production and the young company, made up of school and college students aged 15-17, should take great pride in what they’ve achieved. It is artistic decisions and the want to create something overly complex with a simple story that lets Blood Wedding down but this doesn’t detract from it being an enjoyable night at the theatre.
Blood Wedding: ***
Image courtesy of Nottingham Playhouse.
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