Seductive tale “Blood Wedding” kicks off winter season at Northwestern’s Wirtz Center

Northwestern University’s Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts invites audiences to indulge in a contemporary translation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s lyrical “Blood Wedding.” The seductive tale of passion and vendetta set in the Spanish countryside is directed by Ismael Lara Jr., a candidate of Northwestern's MFA directing program in the School of Communication.

“Blood Wedding” focuses on a young bride-to-be who receives a visit from a former paramour on her wedding day. A family blood feud, born out of a land dispute and a generational cycle of grudges, paranoia and revenge, threatens the celebration and sparks a deadly dance of love and deception, beauty and betrayal. 

“The play is really a tragedy,” Lara said. “There will be moments of joy. There will be moments of deep yearning and love. There will be moments of sacrifice. I think that patrons will walk into the theater and feel the entire human experience.”  

First produced in Madrid 1933, Lorca wrote “Blood Wedding” in the years preceding the Spanish Civil War and the advent of fascism, which accelerated political turmoil in the author’s native Spain and beyond.

Lara is working with a contemporary translation and adaptation of “Blood Wedding” by Obie-award winning playwright and librettist Caridad Svich. Since his death in 1936, Lorca has become the most frequently translated Spanish writer in history.

“This play is like a tea kettle,” Lara said. “Throughout the play, we see that it's beginning to boil. And there is a moment in the play where you hear that tea kettle screaming to be heard. And that is one of the visceral, animalistic, instinctual things that the audience is going to recognize from the play.”

He draws parallels between the social construct the characters in “Blood Wedding” contend with and that of contemporary society.

“In every generation, it feels like there's a realization or an awareness that the system we stand upon is broken. In this play, we see these two lovers realizing that the system is forcing them away from one another and they want to break out of it,” Lara said. “That's why I think this play is so important. That's happening in our country right now. We're realizing that the system that we're standing upon is faulty, and we want to dismantle it.”  

“Blood Wedding” will be performed in the Josephine Louis Theater, 20 Arts Circle Drive, on the Evanston campus January 27 through February 5.  Tickets are available online or in-person at the Wirtz Center Box Office, Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, noon to 4 p.m., located in the Barber Theater lobby at 30 Arts Circle Drive or by calling (847) 491-7282.

Members of the media who wish to cover “Blood Wedding” may request tickets by emailing Stephen Lewis at Stephen.j.lewis@northwestern.edu. A limited number of media tickets are available. 

The Wirtz Center is a member of the Northwestern Arts Circle, which brings together film, humanities, literary arts, music, theater, dance and visual arts.