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LA ZAPATERA PRODIGIOSA (THE PRODIGIOUS SHOEMAKER'S WIFE). By Federico García Lorca. Directed by Andrés Zambrano. Repertorio Español, New York City. 10 April 2014.
Because Federico García Lorca's fame as a playwright still mostly rests on his folk tragedies, the recent production of La zapatera prodigiosa (The Prodigious Shoemaker's Wife) by Repertorio Español offered a welcome reminder of Lorca's interest in comedy and popular ("minor") genres. After numerous revisions, Lorca finalized the piece in 1933 as a "violent farce," invoking a tradition of bawdy theatre that continued the irreverent antics of his puppet plays written during the 1920s. How exactly its "violent" character was supposed to show in the performance is only adumbrated in the original directions, but Lorca envisioned that the piece be staged as a generically adventurous pantacomedia (quite simply, an "everything-play"), replete with folksongs and dances. La zapatera's performance in Spanish for a contemporary audience thus provided an excellent occasion to see how Ecuadorian director Andrés Zambrano would engage its popular theme with the playwright's vague though appealing suggestions for its staging.
Taking as a stock situation the unhappy marriage of convenience between an old man, the Shoemaker, and his much younger wife, La zapatera treats themes also dealt with in Lorca's tragedies. The Shoemaker's Wife is childless and misunderstood; her marriage to the affable though insipid Shoemaker is disappointing, and the intrusive, judgmental small-town community constrains her ability to find happiness. An impatient character with a lively imagination (hence she is called fantasiosa [fanciful] by her husband), the Shoemaker's Wife...