WHEN FIVE YEARS PASS
By Federico García Lorca

Black Box Studio, Askwith Building,
Performed by Year 2 Students
St Martin's College, Lancaster
Wednesday 2 to Saturday 5 March 2005 at 7.30pm

Dalì meets Donne and García Lorca in war-torn Spain
in a visual and dramatic elegy of love, time and identity

Andalusia comes to Bowerham
The plays of the Andalusian poet and dramatist (he was born near Granada) Federico García Lorca (1898 – 1936) are not popular in this country, despite the occasional performances of his Blood Wedding of 1933 and The House of Bernarda Alba from 1934. His other plays are rarely performed – so I leapt at the chance of seeing something different and unusual.

Unusual is a useful starting point for García Lorca and his work. What is not widely known is that the young man, who died a casualty of the Spanish Civil War before his fortieth birthday, had initially trained for the law, and that his early loves were for music and poetry. He was an accomplished pianist with several volumes of gypsy and folk verses, ballads and tragic poems to his name.

A gay poet and playwright
Moreover, by his late teens he was adjusted to his gay sexuality and, in some senses, never looked back. He was involved with Salvador Dalì (passionately) and the Surrealist movement (politically) and Luis Buñuel (ideologically), though he never lost the influence of his own, rural sensibilities. He would still continue to write poetry, however.

Attracted by Surrealism, García Lorca went to New York in 1929 aged 31, where he wrote El Publico, or The Audience, which he styled "explicitly homosexual', and which he and many others have rated as unstageable –. That piece was immediately followed in 1931 by Así que pasen cinco años – When Five Years Pass - the offering I enjoyed last Friday night. And this piece is not easy to stage, either …

An unusual masterpiece
All of this shows a highly unusual and distinctive career, and one that has to be seen against the terrible backdrop of the rising political, social and religious tension in Spain (García Lorca returned to Madrid in 1932). This would erupt in 1936 into the Spanish Civil War, which saw the writer assassinated that August – some say on account of his politics or his sexuality.

This whole chemistry of influences is thus quite likely to produce some odd plays. When Five Years Pass, a neglected and under-rated masterpiece, is a joy to watch but a complex work to describe easily. The metaphysical, surreal plot tells of an intelligent and thinking young man, who waits for five years before he can fully express his love for his fifteen-year old girlfriend. And when the time comes for the expected wedding she no longer wants him, preferring the more robust attractions of a silent, chain-smoking and full-blooded lusty footballer. And others, much to paternal horror and everyone else's chagrin.

The plot (?)
He talks during the play with an older man – a sort of father figure – and some of his male friends; we see a Child with a Dead Cat, killed by children, a Manikin and Harlequin who tease him on his pilgrimage for his own identity, for his lost love and on his search for his hoped-for new love – the Secretary he dismissed at the start of the play.

But the elegiac journey across time and landscape, in verse and in prose, through his own thoughts, as he questions his own identity through meeting, talking and reacting with others, takes him ultimately to a card game with three Card Players. After the crucial, critical showing of the ace of hearts he quickly dies, metaphorically impaled on the image of his own heart projected on the wall of his own library.

Well, I said it was unusual, and without reading up on complex philosophical and literary analysis I can only tell you the bare bones. But you get the idea, I hope. It's a bit like Sartre or Anouilh or Beckett, but livelier after a judicious whiff of Monty Python - and more fun.

And that neatly leads me on to the production …

A visual and vivid production
The production, ably directed and supervised by tutor Colin Knapp, was a sheer joy to watch and listen to. Visually, the audience was immediately in L'España from lights up – a sultry day, cicadas chirruping, Mediterranean green and white décor. Staging was imaginative and resourceful in the intimate forum of the Black Box, and the scene-changes were carried out with wonderful solemn stylized ritual by the Servants and Card Players. It was a poetic Dalì in symbolist motion.

The limpid but elegant linen suits for the Old Man and the hero-role of the Young Man added to the impact, and the costumes for the whole of the cast throughout were more full-bloodedly stylish than some I have seen on some professional stages, including an outrageous white wedding-frock and a camp grey feline ensemble for the Dead Cat (don't ask).

Nineteen able actors
The play was performed by a cast of nineteen including one small stage doubling, and a good number of the cast had also assisted with backstage functions such as wardrobe, scenery, assistant directing and even poster design.

It is always difficult to select, and professionally inept just to reel off a list of individual fine performances from such an able team. That aside, Matthew Melbourne, taking the role of the play's main character and (anti-?) hero, gave an outstanding performance as the Young Man.

There were also some superb supporting performances and cameos from the Dead Cat (Abbie Johnson), the deadpan nicotinic Football Player (Adam Appleby, a devoted non-smoker, I gather, as well as Assistant Director), and the over-the-top Harlequin (Hannah Dalby), the androgynous Manikin ( Laura Daglish) and the operatic Mask, whom you would not want to meet in a dark alley, even if you were desperate (Marie Hayes).

Other skilful dimensions
Ensemble playing, timing and diction were also excellent throughout. It was a joy to hear some sensitive verse-speaking; a fair amount of the dialogue is poetry rather than prose – and I could easily and clearly hear which bits! The all-important colour imagery – of the physical set, the costume and décor, in the language, conveyed by the lighting – was skilfully delivered.

Subliminally, for me at least, the persistent echoes of blood red of real and perceived passion tangled with the lighter-vein yellow and gold images of the sun and the sunflowers magically and symbolically unite into the colours of the Spanish flag.

Despite the outré nature of this surreal, bizarre and complex piece, every single aspect of the production showed considerable attention to detail. I also picked up, from these second years mostly aged around twenty, a sound understanding of not just the basic skills of theatre but of more advanced techniques as well.

Even more – and herein lies the production's highest achievement – every single word, gesture, movement, light shift and inflection and nuance added up to a powerful and intelligent performance which did full justice to the physical, visual, visceral and emotional beauty of García Lorca's fine if somewhat inscrutable text.

Copyright © 6 March 2005 Michael Nunn