Alireza Naraghi

Yerma, Spanish Ensemble is an adaptation of Lorca’s Yerma and directed by Ashkan Sadeghi and Elham Shakib. Yerma is the story of a barren woman while the traditional atmosphere and limitation of the society make this dream the only hope for Yerma. The young woman finds her dreams limited in home and her life is without love and and desire. She sees the only way to escape is having a baby. The lack of this birth in a tragic process leads Yerma to insanity. Lorca’s dramatic works such as Yerma are not only representing attractive atmosphere and local culture but also are consisting of serious criticism toward traditional and introvert society. At the same time it also unmasks individual, enthusiastic and hidden emotions. The performance by Ashkan Sadeghi and Elham Shakib is the extraction of these powerful emotions. Yerma Spanish Ensemble is a kind of playing (Ensemble) of performing and theatrical elements to express these strong hidden emotions in play. The communication link of all these emotions is music. Music has formed the whole atmosphere of the play in a minimal stage and in combination of colour, dance, movement and song. The performance seems familiar and reminds us successful and unsuccessful performances we have already seen of this play. But, the clarity in narrating the story of play and introducing characters combined with logical compaction and live rhythm because of music in this play makes it totally different while interesting. It’s an influential theatrical experience. The visual elements (a simple set), moving elements (with no exaggeration in expression) and audible elements (various and different techniques together) can emotionally satisfy audience. The important part is that fulfillment of emotions doesn’t vanish critical aspects of this play. They don’t sterilize the original idea of Lorca’s dramatic text, but also the performing idea is combined with the main idea of text and this is something which usually has not occurred in adaptation of works at least these recent years.