Like The Laramie Project, which we recently reviewed over at Lakewood Playhouse, Lorca in a Green Dress by Nilo Cruz is essentially a eulogy for a gay man, killed in his prime by people who only saw him as the “other.” While The Laramie Project explores its death from the perspective of the townsfolk who may have contributed to the culture that made that death possible, Lorca in a Green Dress goes much more insular, interrogating the life and death of a man from inside the man’s own mind.
Federico García Lorca was a playwright and poet, whose taste for vivid symbolism and surrealism drew him to his contemporary Salvador Dalí (leading to much speculation about whether their relationship was romantic). In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, it’s believed Lorca was murdered by fascists, although the details are a bit murky.
Lorca in a Green Dress begins in the immediate aftermath of his death, as Lorca (Xander Pena Layden) finds himself in the “Lorca Room,” surrounded by a variety of Lorcas: Lorca in a Green Dress (Erik Davis), Lorca with Bicycle Pants (Parker Nist), Lorca as a Woman (Alexandria Smith), and Lorca in a White Suit (Solace Fairbank), as well as a guard (Bailey Christie), a general (Bil Nowicki), and a flamenco dancer (Arwen Dewey and Marisela Fleites-Lear, trading off performances).
The Lorca Room is neither heaven nor hell, but rather a space for Lorca to spend 40 days coming to terms with his death, and the Lorcas around him represent different sides of his personality. In this afterlife, there is much discussion of dreams, and in fact, the conversations and events that take place feel very much like a dream. It’s as if the mind of Lorca, the poet, has shattered into pieces, creating the hall of mirrors that is the Lorca Room; everyone’s dialogue shares a musicality, as they trip through lush language and finish one another’s sentences.
As the real Lorca (Lorca with Blood, as he’s credited), Layden feels appropriately vivacious, feeling every bit like a man too abundant with life to truly be dead. There are feints made about the inner lives of the other Lorca’s — where they’ve come from, what their function is, what they’ll do when they’re done in the Lorca Room — but one of the great tricks of the show is how much it begins to feel like we’re watching the last synapses of a dying man firing off in his head, all memories and symbols merging into a dreamlike soup.
More than other media about a person finding themselves in the afterlife, what I found myself most reminded of was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — the surrealism, the melancholic longing, the feeling of a man frantically trying to undo an act that can’t be undone. We know that Lorca is dead, that he cannot come back, but even the other Lorca’s — his guides tasked with leading him off of this mortal coil — occasionally seem to root for his survival.
This is an exquisite ensemble, with all of the Lorcas (as well as the soldiers and the flamenco performers) bringing a great deal of tenderness to their performances. There’s a chance that this play could bend under the weight of its many mouthfuls of expressive dialogue, or its formal daring, but director Maria-Tania Bandes B. Weingarden finds just the right tone. For fans of shows that take big swings, Tacoma Little Theatre’s Lorca in a Green Dress is a dream come true.
Photos by Dennis K Photography.
WHAT:
Lorca in a Green Dress
WHEN:
7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through March 23
WHERE:
Tacoma Little Theatre, 210 N. I St., Tacoma
COST:
$22-$29, “Pay What You Can” March 20
LEARN MORE:
tacomalittletheatre.com
(253) 272-2281