| An orgy of narcissistic derangement. This is a contemporary adaptation of Lorca's "tragic poem" with an important shift of emphasis. In the original, Yerma is constrained by social conventions, most particularly the expectation that women provide heirs to their husbands. Here no such constraints exist and Yerma seems driven to have a child more by obsessive, selfish need than by any real desire or even shame. Her inability to conceive registers mostly as a narcissistic injury with incalculable consequences. As a result, though Piper is assuredly searing, she's not so sympathetic. Much like Medea and Clytemnestra before her, this Yerma is a woman whose humiliation has led her to a rage that becomes fearsome and terrible and so alienating. Appropriately, the production has the drift of tragedy; it charges along until its inevitable end. Nothing involves you but its roaring, inexorable motion. |
