Shotgun Wedding

In their most volatile moments, the characters that inhabit Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Blood Wedding” communicate using the adorned metaphors and imagery of poets trapped in a soap opera. Lorca writes like Salvador Dali paints—with a passion and honesty that evokes ineffable truths through surrealism.

Staging such an instinctually intelligent play requires a lot of bravery, and perhaps a bit of audacity. Both qualities are notoriously associated with the Shotgun Players. Director Evren Odcikin has no shortage of good ideas to go along with this production, but unfortunately, this noticeably uneven cast doesn’t consistently bring the guts-out intensity “Blood Wedding” needs. The result is a good play that could’ve been a whole lot better.

Like the stage it’s set on, the plot of “Blood Wedding” proves a simple vessel for the language it carries. A short and baby-faced Groom (Ryan O’Donnell) prepares to marry his Bride (Erin Gilley), much to the dismay of his widowed Mother (Scarlett Hepworth). The Groom is kind and, like his fiancée, affluent, but her heart belongs to the tall, dark and handsome Leonardo (John-Paul Goorjian). Complications ensue.

Put simply, the success of this play lives and dies on the hawt-factor of the relationship between Gilley and Goorjian. Yes, O’Donnell’s earnestness and vaguely dorky articulation make him a tragic cuckold. Yes, absolutely every line spoken by the Bride’s Father (John Mercer) brims with life. And yes, the original music that accompanies the show (performed onstage by flamenco guitarist David McLean) is just perfect. But there’s just no getting around the fact that “Blood Wedding” throbs with passion in nearly every facet save for the one that matters most.

On the eve of her wedding, the Bride sullenly wishes she had been born a man with power over her own life, but Gilley’s frail performance dwells too much on the difficulty of her situation, leaving little room for her feelings for Leonardo that supposedly drive the conflict. Goorjian, for his part, smolders with a slow-burning lust that’s almost violent. But even during their disappointingly tame make-out scene, Gilley exhibits too much remorse for the life she’s left behind and hardly any palpable attraction toward the reason she left. Second-guessing is interesting to a point, but when she says, “Your beauty makes me burn,” it’s not very convincing.

Though Gilley’s delivery doesn’t rise to Lorca’s impassioned heights, Dawn Scott delivers a standout performance as Leonardo’s Wife. Over the course of one act, the Wife builds powerfully from heartbroken to ferocious, and Scott’s personification of the Moon in the second act effectively harnesses Lorca’s vicious and seductive poetry.

That poetry also receives loving attention from set designer Kate Boyd. Her stage is luxurious in its minimalism—a thin red streak extends from either side of the white arch at center-stage, providing an apt visual metaphor for Lorca’s fiery yet ornate prose.

It’s hard to fault the Shotgun Players for the shortcomings in “Blood Wedding.” The play demands a passion that’s exhausting to achieve, let alone sustain for nearly two hours. The production occasionally matches the tenor of the text, and when that text is a masterpiece, you’ve got yourself a show well worth attending. Still, “Blood Wedding” is too much Groom and not enough Leonardo: kind, clean-faced and easy to like, but it doesn’t really get the blood boiling.

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