When the curtain rises on Paul Bowles' "Yerma," based on the play of the same name by Federico García Lorca, it reveals the titular character, played by Chelsea Basler, asleep on a chair. A man and a young girl walk down the stairs of the theater to gaze at her motionless body.
Unfortunately for the audience, the plot does not get much more captivating over the next 80 minutes — in fact, viewers may find themselves sleeping in their own chairs by the time the curtain lowers again.
Bowles' opera, performed by Boston University's (BU) Opera Institute, revolves around the life of the young Yerma who is unhappily married to a farmer and finds herself tormented by her inability to conceive. As with every BU Opera Institute performance, there are two casts for "Yerma," each performing in rotation. A viewer who attends on another night may have a completely different cast than that reviewed here.
"Yerma" dissects the cultural norms and the monotony of life in rural Spain in the 1930s. The traditional scene focuses on men at work and absent from the home, while women cook, clean and rear enough children to form a little league, à la Angelina Jolie.
However, for those of us uninterested in the quotidian activities executed by the title character, Yerma's hour-long, overdramatic plea for a child to hold — or considering her desperation, smother — falls short of being appealing.
Not only is the script highly predictable due to its repetitiveness — specifically, "I want a baby," "I need a baby" and, "Please, God, give me a baby" — but it is also filled with banal vocabulary, turning this supposedly poetic play into a melodramatic and whiny discourse. Instead of subtly implying the societal values and the prejudice imposed on Yerma due to her infertility, Yerma's experiences are blatantly announced to the point where the piece becomes unrealistic.
There are incongruous aspects to the script. Many believe the original play helped lead to Lorca's murder because of its challenging stance against the Catholic Church, yet Bowles' opera is far from controversial. Yerma's long-lost childhood love, Victor (John Irvin), appears out of nowhere, and a love triangle between the two of them and Yerma's husband Juan (Daniel Solomon) surfaces suddenly, without any real explanation.
The set is best described as minimalistic. The darkened theater is illuminated by colorful lanterns hung from the ceiling, which provide a nice Spanish touch and highlight a stage nearly barren of fixtures. The costumes represent realistically a lower-class rural setting: The cast dons worn-down, faded clothes, featuring mostly ill-fitted floral dresses and holey sweaters. However, since the script alone did not contain much to hold a viewer's attention, it was a disappointment that neither an ornate set nor colorful, extravagant costumes were present to act as substitutes.
Waiting for the climax was comparable to waiting for Godot — it never really came. If "Yerma" does have a vertex, it is the sudden, unexpected twist at the very end of the play, when some action finally takes place. But at the precise moment when things get interesting, the play ends, leaving the audience bewildered as to whether or not to clap or to wait for some sort of closure. It is as though the play ends mid-scene.
However, most of these shortfalls are the fault of the piece itself — the cast's talent cannot be disregarded. Basler has a phenomenal voice. Although the melodies themselves were not enthralling, the musicians were tight, and not a single note was sung off-key. The actors performed very sincerely and depicted their roles very believably. Yet the silver lining of the solid acting could not compensate for the halting and slow-paced play itself.
Considering that their talent still shone through in "Yerma," it's definitely worth checking out this cast onstage. You should just do so in a different production.
