Blood Wedding
This week, Dal Theatre in Halifax presents Blood Wedding, a three-act tragedy by Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. AE spoke with the play’s director Jure Gantar about the production, which runs from Nov 22-26 at the Sir James Dunn Theatre in Halifax.
AE: How long have you been involved with Dal Theatre?
JG: I came to Dalhousie in 1992 and directed my first production (Aphra Behn’s The Lucky Chance) in 1995.
AE: What are the biggest challenges of your profession?
JG: The biggest challenge for a director is not to impose his or her own personal style on a production but instead to let the interpretation emerge from everyone involved in the show.
AE: What are the rewards?
JG: A director should never forget that any theatre production has a collective rather than a subjective identity. On the other hand, simply seeing a production completed is the greatest reward for a director. Even when a director’s vision is not fully realized, a production is something that starts from virtually nothing and then, at least for the period of its run, suddenly becomes very tangible.
AE: What made you choose Blood Wedding?
JG: Blood Wedding serves our Department on many levels: its cast is almost a perfect match for our graduating year; the play deals with a universal subject that is very close to young actors; and the play also offers endless possibilities for imaginative staging solutions.
AE: Are there any unique challenges in putting this particular piece together?
JG: There are two main potential stumbling blocks in a contemporary Nova Scotian take on Blood Wedding. First, Lorca’s beautiful poetry is relatively hard to translate and also hard to deliver on stage in our, essentially prosaic world. And second, the sense of a Spanish landscape that is so crucial for the atmosphere of the play is difficult to convey to the audience used to the depressing cold and rain, rather than to the stifling heat and sun.
AE: What can audiences expect to experience during the run?
JG: I hope our audiences will enjoy the raw emotions of Lorca’s characters and the surreal imagery of his poetry.
AE: What are your thoughts on the current state of theatre in Halifax?
JG: The Theatre scene in Halifax is very lively right now, with a number of small, alternative companies complementing nicely the repertoire of Neptune and other more established groups. I just wish that the better funded local institutions would be quicker to offer emerging artists an opportunity to showcase their abilities.
