THEATER REVIEW : Fate Dooms Amateurs in Lorca’s Lyrical ‘Blood Wedding’

Consider this a warning to audiences and artists alike: Beware “Blood Wedding.”

Federico Garcia Lorca’s three-act tragedy in verse and song is deeply obsessed with mortality, yet fluid and lyrical as (to borrow a Lorca-ism) the wind. But the early 20th Century master of Spanish theater wrote sprawling works so thoroughly fixed in his native land that there’s nothing for a director to toy with.

At Orange Coast College, Bryan Prince’s staging with the school’s repertory company in the cramped Drama Lab Studio is at best an act of love, at worst a student experiment that might best have been served by not going public.

There are outlines here of a faint awareness of Lorca’s world of fates, of language drenched in metaphor and imagery, of impossible social bonds. And Prince wisely avoids any director’s statements. But this is an especially painful case of theater-in-training.

It’s the tale of a bride (Nectar Rose) and groom (Daniel Balcazar) torn apart by a former flame, Leonardo (Isaac Christopher); all of them are fated for tragedy by an old blood feud, and there’s a solemnity here completely alien to American sensibilities. It’s no wonder American companies rarely succeed with “Blood Wedding.”

No one ever said this is easy, even for the finest professional classical troupes. The central problem at OCC lies with actors trained in naturalistic style having to adapt to Lorca’s deliberately artificial archetypes, complex verse and chant-like songs. This is drama much closer to ancient Greek tragedy than to any modern American tragedy, and Prince’s cast appears to be in uncharted waters. For the most part, in a work so infused with emotions that it reportedly triggered suicides during its first Madrid performances, the emotional level is as flat as the vocal delivery.

Still, there are those valiant few who rise above the sensibility of a nervy exercise. Christina Rabano as the bridegroom’s mother seems truly weighted down by the ghosts of family feuds, and Rose suggests genuine torn emotions as she runs off with Leonardo on her wedding day. The men are sadly uninvolved, unconvincing or both, and much of the singing (except by young Corinne Hart and Megan Rank) is fairly unlistenable. Too bad, because Lorca is, above all, a playwright for the ear.

* “Blood Wedding,” Orange Coast College Drama Lab Studio, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.. Ends Sunday. $5-$6. (714) 432-5880. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. Christina Rabano: The Mother

Daniel Balcazar: The Bridegroom

Kat Yeo: The Neighbor

Herlinda Mahler: The Mother-in-Law

Amy Muretta: Leonardo’s Wife

Isaac Christopher: Leonardo

Corinne Hart: First Girl

Lorena Ramirez: The Servant

Bill Nelson: The Father

Nectar Rose: The Bride

Megan Rank: Second Girl

An Orange Coast College Theatre Arts Repertory Company production of a play by Federico Garcia Lorca, directed by Bryan Prince. Set: Prince, David Scaglione and Jeff Kriese. Lights: Mark Heiberger and Prince.