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Stalwart multilingual company Théâtre Sans Frontières has been producing rich, accessible world theatre from its base in the north-east of England for more than 20 years. This tribute to Federico García Lorca in music, poetry and drama is a typically warm and vibrant experience from them, but ironically let down by its dated and tepid source material.
Lorca’s ‘El Amor de Don Perlimplin y Belisa en su Jardin’, which Théâtre Sans Frontières have adapted here, is an early marital drama, described by its author as an ‘erotic postcard’. It’s exactly as flimsy and pointless as that description suggests. The vaguely misogynistic story of a kindly rich old man cuckolded by an insatiable, money-grabbing young wife, it’s full of the kind of set pieces that pass for plot in light opera, and peppered with painfully unfunny visual gags and double entendres. Lorca’s sumptuous, dreamlike imagery is all present and correct, delivered here in the original Spanish with surtitles; but attached to such a non-event of a play it just drags things out even further until patience is all but exhausted.
Director John Cobb and his talented company have added an entertaining prologue to contextualise the play, which came close to obliteration by the censorious Madrid police force, and the boisterous musical interludes they add are welcome and cheering. Best of all is a shimmering shadow puppet interlude as the white-haired Perlimplin sleeps through his wife’s adultery.
A slightly tour-battered set from designer Neil Murray aside, there’s much attention to detail, love and craft in Théâtre Sans Frontières’ presentation that just falls slightly short of saving the day.