YERMA

BY FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA

Lorca’s play, one of the pinnacles of modern poetic drama, demands a poetic solution—one that opens up the plot’s specific focus on a rural Spanish woman unable to conceive a child to address the unrealized aspirations and yearnings of all humans.

The abstract unit set was a harsh environment in dry barren earth tones reflecting Yerma’s fruitless efforts to conceive in a cruel world. The stage floor was steeply raked with multiple levels. I wanted to create a place where every move requires an effort, and even standing still becomes a balancing act.

The set accommodated both the intimate scenes as well as the community, religious and pagan rituals to which Yerma turns.

Visual imagery in the design reflected the contrasts in Yerma’s merciless world:

• A stunted tree (a, b) reaching toward the sun for nourishment mirrored Yerma’s appeal to her cruelly deceptive religion.
• Louvers of rough lumber evoked the rural society of peering, mocking gossips who added to Yerma’s misery.
• A pool of water located at the base of the set and used in the laundry scene reinforced the contrast between purification and regeneration and the barrenness of the landscape upstage and of Yerma herself.
• Stark towers with no visible easy access loomed over the set representing how far Yerma is from attaining her goal of having a child and finding fulfillment as a woman.