Home Food News WSU Theatre presents: ‘Blood Wedding’

WSU Theatre presents: ‘Blood Wedding’

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Greene County News Report

FAIRBORN — Wright State University Theatre continues its season in with the drama, “Blood Wedding” to showcase Nov. 20 through 22 and Dec. 3 through 6 in the Herbst Experimental Black Box Theatre.

“Blood Wedding” bestowed fame and fortune overnight on its author. In 1928, García Lorca read a newspaper account of a wedding that ended in tragic circumstances near Almería in southern Spain. He clipped the article, reread it five years later, and in a week finished his play, which became a hit in Madrid, Barcelona and Buenos Aires.

According to the play’s director, Assistant Professor of Acting at Wright State Jason Kaufman, Lorca sees society as an “oppressive mechanism which locks away, indeed threatens, the primal responses of human beings, and which does untold psychological damage.”

In “Blood Wedding,” Lorca forcefully presents the theme of his three tragedies: Love that is unfulfilled because of the need to preserve honor and appearances resulting in death.

Summarized, it is about a good-natured, hardworking young man contracts matrimony with a woman. The bridegroom is the only surviving member of a family that has been involved in a feud with the Felixes, and his mother is still overcome with a mixture of rage and fear that her only surviving son will meet the same fate.

In rural Spain, where there were no secrets, it was known that the bride had been seeing someone else before the engagement. She is still madly in love with Leonardo (of the Felix family), who is married and the father of a boy. While the wedding celebration continues with singing and dancing, Leonardo rides away with the new bride. He is pursued by the groom, and the two men kill each other, thus causing the mother’s forebodings to come true.

The play’s lyrics are provided by Keaton Echoff. The set is designed by Aubrey Ingram, lighting by Ryan McCoy, properties by John Lavarnway and sound by James Dunlap. On the stage, this production features Jake West as Bridegroom, Emise Hapner as Bride, Tommy DiMassimo as Leonardo, Katlyn Tilt as Wife of Leonardo, Julia Gomez as Mother, Cody Lewis as Father, Grace Liesch as Mother-in-Law, Jasmine Easler as Moon, Diana Frankhauser as Maid, Rachael Horner as Neighbor/Death, Cheryl Lutz, Alejandria Solis, MacKenzie Stephens, and Natalie Girard as girls as well as Ian Ashwell, Zachary Fretag and William Mendleson as woodcutters.

Blood Wedding opens 8 p.m. Nov. 20, with additional performances 8 p.m. Nov. 21 and 2 p.m. Nov. 22 and 8 p.m. Dec. 4, 6 and 8 p.m. Dec. 5 and 2 p.m. Dec. 6. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students.

For tickets and theatre information, call the Box Office at 937-775-2500, or purchase single tickets online at www.wright.edu/theatre-tickets.

Greene County News Report compiled by Whitney Vickers.