The Bilbao director Javier Hernández-Simón (1977), directs at the Teatro Español in Madrid a version of ‘Mariana Pineda’ by Federico Garcia Lorca, which the Granada-born writer premiered in 1927, although he finished writing the piece a couple of years earlier. He was inspired to do so by a woman, also from Granada and a 19th century historical figure, who became a liberal emblem against the absolutist restoration of the king Fernando VII.
Tried and sentenced to die by a vile stick for having collaborated with women from Granada’s Albaicín neighborhood in embroidering a flag with the words Freedom, Equality and Law, ‘Mariana Pineda’, since then in Spain became a true popular symbol of the fight against the lack of freedom.
In the version of Hernandez-Simon it is Laia Marull who embodies the historic liberal heroine that the Catalan actress interprets with contained political passion in favor of the other passion that adorns the character, the romantic and sentimental. His figure concentrates the permanent attention of the public since the rest of the characters permanently rotate around him: Clavela, Angustias, Pedro, Fernando, Pedrosa… Accompany Marull in the cast Aurora blacksmith, Marta Gomez, Silvana Navas, Sara Cifuentes, Oscar Zafra, Alex Gadea, Fernando Huesca Y Jose Fernandez.
The suggestive scenography of Bengoa Vazquez it is beautiful and polysemic. Red crisscrossing strips that evoke a loom as well as a prison, a Manila shawl that evokes the house of Mariana, with mobile doors that, located behind this framework, change their situation and meanings. Spaces all that illuminate Juan Gomez-Cornejo Y Jon Aníbal with precision and subtlety to highlight the emotions of the heroine. You saw this and the rest of the characters Beatriz Robledo with inspired period figurines. Alvaro Renedo is the author of exciting music and sound space and Marta Gomez signs the scenic movement and the showy choreography with the nine characters of the drama.
The version does not lack footing, clapping, guitar and song that frame the action of the drama in the heart of Andalusia in the 19th century and, of course, the poetic words of the poet and playwright from Granada who, already in those first dramatic works, pointed with crystal clarity where their next groundbreaking proposals were going to run.
‘Mariana Pineda’
Author: Federico Garcia Lorca
Version and direction: Javier Hernández-Simón
Distribution: Aurora blacksmith, Marta Gomez, Silvana Navas, Sara Cifuentes, Laia Marull, Oscar Zafra, Alex Gadea, Fernando Huesca Y Jose Fernandez
Illumination design: Juan Gomez-Cornejo Y Ion Aníbal
Stage space design: Bengoa Vazquez
Costume Design: Beatriz Robledo
Musical direction, composition and sound space: Alvaro Renedo
Stage movement and choreography: Marta Gomez
Production: GG Stage Production, Nomad Theater Y Saga Producciones in co-production with AJ Claqué, Mardo, Juan Carlos Castro placeholder image Y María Díaz Communication
Spanish theater, Madrid
Until February 7, 2021
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