Living Lorca

So I take drama as one of my electives at school and it is by far my favourite subject. (Even though lately the latter comment has undergone serious reconsideration due to a new drama teacher and bratty disrespectful classmates with a sense of cocky entitlement)


Anyway, for our practical exam we have to do any monologue of our choosing (just no Shakespearian or South African theatre). I chose a monologue from Lorca's epic "Blood Wedding". It is an amazing play. Just go and Google the script- it's intense stuff. So I play the role of a bride and in my monologue I am facing my mother-in-law because, in essence, I am responsible for the death of her last surviving son who I had just married. The story is really really twisted and juicy. So so much drama. In the play, my character runs off with 'my' cousin's husband on the day of 'my' wedding to the bridegroom. My cousin's husband just so happens to be my ex-lover whose family was responsible for the deaths of my mother-in-law's husband and other son. So when I run off with my old lover, my new husband leads a search party to get me back. Both my husband and ex-lover end up dying in a knife fight... I loved them both- just differently and for different reasons. I loved my husband because he was gentle, kind and good and he would've saved me from pain. I loved my ex-lover (Oh! His name is Leonardo in the play by the way!)out of passion and heat and irrationality- it was all very heated and sexually-driven. So YEAH! Go read the play... It will probably be able to explain it better than I can. It really is a beautiful play.


The reason for this post is that I just want to relay some of my experiences while I've been working on this piece. I think it might drive me insane. The fact of the matter is that my real life situation is very similar to that of the bride at the moment. I'm not responsible for the death of the two men I loved but the feelings, in essence, are very similar. She's battling with a choice and is struggling between acting on her dark sexual, sensual self or her obligatory duty as a wife, daughter and woman. I am a seventeen year old girl that loves easily, has fallen for two guys in particular and is struggling with her sexual identity. My sexual orientation remains heterosexual yet I  have reached a point in my life where because I have experienced what it felt like to be loved or at least temporarily wanted, I want more. I have a gaping hole that is my physical needs and my labido... "I am a woman on fire. Inside and outside ablaze with agonies" (A line from my monologue). I feel so raw when I deliver this monologue. I feel like someone has exposed me to a side of myself that I have never known before... or never acknowledged. 


I'm a kid whose been bound tightly by rules... my parents aren't Amish or anything- just over-protective. So naturally, my first kiss is something they think I haven't had yet. (Hopefully they won't be one of the people reading my blog- otherwise oh well...) YES I KISSED A BOY... AND I LIKED IT. I'm probably not going to marry him but nor will I regret my relationship with him. Ever since then it was like someone had set off a ticking time bomb because my physical needs, that had been ever-building, were on the verge of causing me to implode. And Lorca's play keeps reminding me of the choices I have to make between passion and duty and which one is suitable in certain situations... Because while I know my parents want what's best for me, the do not understand how my mind works and how I process things. I know it's a cliché to say that 'My parents don't understand me' but they really don't. They have no idea who I am... I'm not saying that's due to a lack of trying but rather due to fear. I've expressed interest in things they don't know anything about- namely performing arts and acting in particular... It scares the living daylights out of them not knowing the kind of people I will meet along the way or if I'll make good decisions. They fear the unknown which is 100% normal and understandable. 


So dear Teacups, the moral of this post is not to deny the existence of your shadow-self. We all have parts of ourselves that we are scared of. Actors in articular actually face that shadow-self more than any other type of person because we need to tap into those emotions in order to perform a character. I don't mean go and act on every dark impulse... I just mean accept your human nature and make the distinction of where your loyalties lie. Make decision based on passion or duty depending on which suits the situation the best. 


Be You... 


Thank you Lorca.

Originally the Spanish, "Bodas De Sangre"

--J.