Fuente Ovejuna
By Lope de Vega
Tangram Theatre Company, Southwark Playhouse.
Performed in English
It’s truly enlivening when theatre sets itself an ambitious challenge and rises to it with panache. Audacious theatre, delivered with aplomb.
TIME OUT
A lively and different evening of theatre which breaths an energetic life into this 1614 Spanish play. Tangram again show themselves to be fantastic story tellers.
What’s On Stage
Has theatre ever been this fun?! My advice: Sit back, grab a beer and enjoy the chaos and dance. Theatre at it’s best. Simply do not miss it.
Everything Theatre
Daniel Goldman’s young company has a decidedly cocky approach to making theatre, and here the result is a bright, lively, imaginative interpretation.
Evening Standard
Goldman pulls off a real coup
when the production effortlessly changes gear from comic romp to near-tragedy soon after the
interval. Marvellously Entertaining.
BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE
Based on true events, Fuente Ovejuna tells the story of an entire village who rise up and kill their tyrant feudal lord, Fernan Gomez, after he interrupts the wedding of young village lovers, Frondoso and Laurencia, to claim his right to Laurencia as overlord of the village. When news of Fernan Gomez’s death reaches the ears of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, they resolve to send a judge to the village of Fuente Ovejuna to determine which of the villagers should be executed. The villagers however formulate a plan to survive.
Cast
Radhika Aggarwhal (Master), Felix Andrew (Barrildo), Martin Aukland* (Ortuño), Anthony Best* (Esteban / Manrique), Hannah Boyde* (Laurencia), Roberto Cavazos* (Flores), Neil Connolly (Flores), Richard Cunningham* (Commander / Judge), Rachel Dale* (Pascuala), Andrew David (Frondoso), Sian Goff (Laurencia), Caroline Kilpatrick (Master), Amy Loughton (Master), Zoot Lynam (Frondoso), James Richard Marshall (The Commander/Judge), Lachlan McCall (Barrildo), Katherine Rodden* (Master), James Rowland* (Frondoso), Peter Stickney* (King Ferdinand), Rob Witcomb* (Mengo), Charlotte Workman (Pascuala), Johnny Vivash* (Barrildo)
*Original Cast
Creative Team
Daniel Goldman* (Director, Translator) Rebekah Kirk* (Stage Manager), Carolina Ortega* (Producer), Liane Escorza (Producer), Andy Dickinson (Producer)
* Original Production
Fuente Ovejuna is a play I absolutely love and the experience of making it (twice) probably still the most fun I’ve had directing while also being the most experimental work I’ve done.
In the first production, the experiment was how active and engaged could we make an audience in the telling of this story of a village that rises up to kill a tyrant and then holds strong in the face of a justice system that is looking for an individual to hang. In the second, the question was could a play be performed by a community of actors rather than a stable cast.
And on top of everything, we also wanted to see if we could do things that we’d never seen on stage before. Such as… performing the show with a different live band every night, every part of the show (before, interval, after) being part of the show, casting the audience as actors in the show, running a bar on stage that was open to all throughout, performing with all the lights on with no costumes and only live music and no tech etc.
The show was designed to feel like a gig, to feel like a party, and yet to aim was also that the tragic moments and the violence rang true. What I really tried to do was to create a slow release show that was a blast on the night, and then stayed with audiences for weeks. And that’s what happened.
More than any other show, this was the show that gave me the belief to continue working as a director.
All photos © Ben Carpenter