Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Susan had a busy morning.  She had a photo workshop at 10:00 that lasted for an hour and a half.  She discussed her food project with her instructor and got some valuable pointers.  When she came home, since Rosa did not show last Thursday, she set about cleaning the apartment from top to bottom.  By the time she finished, she was in no mood to do anything except to go out for lunch and that is exactly what we did.

The path of least resistance was La Fórcola and given the fact that we frequently like to follow that path that is where we ended up.  We both started with the green apple salad that had a mixture of lettuces, bits of Serrano ham and slices of green apple.  Susan had the pasta with tellinas and I opted for the swordfish.  Our dessert was fresh pineapple and it was at the peak of its ripeness.  After our coffee we headed back home for a bit and at 4:15 we hailed a cab to take us to La Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático located at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.  We were going there to see some student directed scenes from García Lorca’s YERMA because we are both fond of García Lorca and because our friend, Rebeca Valls, was in the starring role.

We arrived a bit early in spite of the fact that the taxi driver was not quite sure how to get there.  That has been happening a lot lately with the cabs we have hailed.  The drivers are not quite sure how to get to where we want to go.  The room auditorium was not open so we headed to the cafeteria for a quick coffee.  When we finished we headed back and no sooner did we arrive than the doors were opened and there was a mad rush for seats.  We managed to get two in the first row.

The student director introduced the scenes and shared some of his thoughts that went into his interpretation of the play.  The lights dimmed, the music began, the stage lights came up and the scenes began.  YERMA is a tragedy.  It tells the story of a married woman who is unable to have a child and her husband who is not interested in having a child.  It is a critique of rural Spanish culture where marriages were arranged and sex was never a topic of conversation.  Yerma ends up killing her husband and, in effect, killing herself and her dream.  I think the director was unaware of this.

There really is no other explanation of why he mixed modern elements – a digital camera, modern bathing suits, bottled water and beer bottles – in a setting where the main character went out to manually work his fields and tend his herds.  The other puzzlement was why some of the scenes were played for laughs, including a slapstick scene where the main character’s hair gets caught on another character’s earrings and she struggles to get her hair free.  The good news is that García Lorca’s words are powerful and when delivered by such a talented actress as Rebeca they still resonate with your soul.  She was letter perfect in these scenes.

After the performance we chatted with her briefly because she was returning to Madrid on the 7:30 AVE.  We had the chance to meet her parents and chat with them briefly.  We then made our way from the building to the traffic circle and found a cab to take us back home.  It was a little after 7:00 when we walked through the door.

We were in for the evening and Susan put together a salad that was our dinner.  We spent the evening working on the computer, reading and watching some TV.  Since I will be performing an effect or two at tonight’s dinner at La Cuchara Mágica I ran through the effects I will perform and made sure that all was in order.  We went to bed around 11:30 having spent another lovely day in Valencia.

Here are some of Susan’s photos from the past few days.  Enjoy!