I RECREACIÓN HISTÓRICA DE LA BATALLA DE BAILEN (JAEN) 2005
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005

Barren 'Yerma,' Delivering The Goods

Any doubt about the central obsession of GALA Hispanic Theatre's passionate "Yerma" should be quelled by the large object suspended over the set. It's a breast, and an active one at that. A fine mist of sand issues continuously from the nipple and settles on the floor, adding grain by grain to the play's mounting sense of sadness.

"Marchita! Marchita!" intones Ana Veronica Muñoz, playing the tortured title character in director Hugo Medrano's compelling and accomplished revival of Federico Garcia Lorca's 1934 Andalusian tragedy. "Withered! Withered!" is the childless Yerma's plaintive lament, and she doesn't care who in her gossipy Spanish village hears it. The hollow echoes from her insides are all that resound in Yerma's ears anyway.

If Yerma's agitated vigil for a baby that will not come seems a formula for a monumental downer, Medrano's production finds a variety of balms. From the rendering of a sun-dried hamlet by set designer Tony Cisek to Muñoz's beautifully calibrated portrait of a woman on the verge, this "Yerma" satisfyingly allows a host of intense colors to bleed into a play that can sometimes seem starkly black and white.

"Yerma" is one of the signature works of lyrical naturalism by Garcia Lorca, a celebrated dramatist executed by right-wing forces in Spain less than two years after the play's premiere. It also happens to be the play with which GALA is inaugurating its new home -- the most opulent lodgings in its 29-year history -- in the renovated Tivoli Theatre in Columbia Heights. The balcony of the old movie palace has been retrofitted for GALA's 270-seat performance space. The perch seems symbolically apropos for the peaks that the company is admirably trying to scale.

Among the improvements initiated here by GALA, which performs in Spanish, is the use of opera-style surtitles. In other spaces around the city, the company had been employing headphones with offstage actors speaking dialogue simultaneously in English. The reception on the headsets was variable, and even if your Spanish was limited to "sí, sí" and "gracias," having the actors' voices onstage drowned out by those piped in electronically diminished the immediacy of the experience. (It is particularly distracting when disembodied English can't keep up with the Spanish.)

The surtitles remove that barrier. It does take several minutes of adjustment for an English speaker to figure out how to divide one's time between the dialogue projected overhead and the movement and expression of the actors below. But you are no longer deprived of the full force of a powerful performance. And the bonus, especially true for a poet like Garcia Lorca, is that a playwright's majestic use of metaphor can be more fully absorbed and savored.

Medrano's staging takes exceptional advantage of the space. The design in the circular recess of the original ceiling of the old Tivoli feels as if it might have been waiting for "Yerma." Concentric rings seem to radiate from the center, and the effect in this piece about aridity on the Andalusian chaparral is of the presence of an unforgiving, unrelenting sun.

Among the things that are parched in this environment is Yerma's womb, but other factors contribute to the suffocating of life within and around her. Garcia Lorca depicts in this rural backwater a world of constriction for women, dictated both by heavy-handed tradition and superstition. The only access they have to a creative life is through the birth canal, and when a woman of Yerma's passion and feverish determination for a larger purpose is denied even that outlet, the results are bound to be dire.

It may be difficult these days to countenance Yerma's almost pathological need for a child -- even Yerma's husband, Juan (the excellent Carlos Castillo), and her more fertile neighbors are taken aback by her desperation. But thanks in large part to Muñoz's palpable warmth, Yerma's fixation is made to seem an understandable consequence of her stifling circumstances. She is, in this production, seen clearly as a rebel, no less so than the women in Ibsen's plays, who chafe against society's demands for docility and obeisance. This idea is reinforced cannily and even amusingly in "Yerma," with the arrival of Juan's sinister sisters (Alida Yath and Marta Chico Martin). Stern-faced, cloaked sexlessly in black, they could easily be emissaries of some misogynistic cleric from one intolerant sect or another.

Medrano's production dances with genteel precision between the real and the surreal. Always there is that sculptural mammary gland to remind us of what troubles Yerma's soul and poisons her mind. Then again, we get glimpses of the more mundane preoccupations of the village, as when the women gather at a river to sing and share secrets as they pound clean their robes and bedsheets. Cisek's set, a simple collection of stone walls and ramped walkways, cleverly creates the illusion of winding paths on a hillside. Marija Temo's compositions, set to lyrics by Garcia Lorca and sung a cappella by the cast, exude a folksy authenticity.

Music can be heard even in the spoken word. Among the many strong performances, Miriam Cruz's turn as a lusty, plain-spoken village elder, and Cesar A. Guadamuz's portrayal of a townsman who might have made Yerma happy, are particularly supple. With this full-bodied "Yerma," Medrano asserts a mature grasp of Garcia Lorca's work. As a result, a tale laced with melancholy throws open the doors felicitously on a new phase in GALA's evolution.

Yerma, by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated by Caridad Svich. Directed by Hugo Medrano. Lighting, Ayun Fedorcha; costumes, Alessandra D'Ovidio; sound, Neil McFadden; choreography, Edwin Aparicio. With Seferina Liriano, Lorena Sabogal, Julieta Maroni, Monalisa Arias, Beatriz Mayoral, Mattias Kraemer, Lucrecia Basualdo. Approximately two hours. Through March 13 at GALA at the Tivoli, 3333 14th St. NW. Call 202-234-7174 or visit www.galatheatre.org.

Hector Pastrama feels like he spends more time in his car than he does at home -- which can be torture without the right tunes.

But last month, his trips across Maryland and Delaware taking supply orders from Hispanic-owned groceries became considerably more tolerable when 99.1 WHFS-FM ditched its alternative rock format to become "El Zol," the region's newest, most powerful Spanish-language radio station.

"It gets me to the last toll," said Pastrama, referring to the toll plaza on Interstate 95 just north of the Susquehanna River. He moved from Puerto Rico to Middletown, Del., last year. "The music is great. I really like it. Besides, in Delaware, we have nothing."

For Latinos in Baltimore and tiny hamlets beyond, Lanham-based El Zol, whose motto is "siempre de fiesta" or "always partying," has filled a niche on the FM dial and speaks to the influence of a growing, much-coveted demographic.

"It proves we're here to stay," said Herbert Portillo, a Baltimore resident of 12 years, who owns a Salvadoran restaurant and Latino grocery on South Broadway in Fells Point. "Some of us have been here for so many years, but we don't have a way to connect to each other."

While the Washington area has several Spanish-language stations, Baltimore listeners must struggle through static to hear them. Tiny stations such as WYRE-AM 810 in Annapolis and WILC-AM 900 in Laurel have helped meet a need, but the arrival of El Zol -- a twist on the Spanish word sol, which means sun -- brings with it clear reception, variety and competition.

The new WHFS, which is changing its call letters to WZLL, will target listeners 25 to 54 years old with a Spanish-language tropical format -- bass-heavy reggaeton, upbeat merengue, salsa and bachata.

With no Spanish daily newspaper, Baltimore's Latino community often turns to radio for information. The expectations for Infinity Broadcasting Corp.'s El Zol are great. Community advocates hope the station will include local political programming; small-business owners are hungry for an advertising outlet, and music fans want genres ranging from Mexican regional to South American cumbia.

"This is the first [Spanish-language] station that comes to Baltimore, so everybody is buzzing about it," said Pedro Candelario, who owns Don Pedro's Musica Latina on South Broadway. "This is a really big deal."

Some industry experts caution Baltimore Latino listeners not to expect programming tailored to them alone.

Because advertising revenue is vital to a station, the station might cater to the Montgomery County area, which has a thriving Latino community, said Adam Jacobson, radio editor for Radio & Records, an industry publication in Los Angeles.

"People in Baltimore will be able to hear the station, but [the station's] main focus will be the Washington Hispanic community; it's extremely affluent and has been growing for years," he said. "Any radio company puts on a radio station for one reason -- to make money. It doesn't matter where their listeners are, it's how much ad money you can make."

Baltimore's Hispanic community -- about 55,000 strong, according to the U.S. Census -- consists of many new immigrants, mainly from Central and South America.

Some worry that one station can't meet the needs of a diverse and growing community.

"Honestly, I think the music is boring," said Virgilio Gonzalez, who was born in the Dominican Republic and owns Latin American Food in Fells Point. "It's the same thing all the time. We are very diverse."

Radio stations flip formats all the time, but with competition intensifying for fresh markets among big broadcast companies, listeners of Spanish radio are being recognized as a hot demographic, said Jacobson. By teaming with Miami-based Spanish Broadcasting Systems, the nation's largest Hispanic-controlled radio company, Infinity is tapping into one of the fastest-growing radio genres.

Clear Channel Communications announced last year that it wanted to expand its Spanish programming and switch formats at its poorer-performing stations, he said. Last week, it converted an oldies station in Orlando to a Spanish-language format.

"What is significant is this is the two biggest radio companies in America seeing that the real growth is in the Spanish-speaking community," Jacobson said of Infinity and Clear Channel.

A study in December by Arbitron estimated that Hispanic Americans represent $686 billion in spending power, and their spending power is growing at twice the annual rate of non-Hispanics.

Statewide, the Hispanic population grew about 15 percent between 2000 and 2003 to more than 262,000, with the biggest concentrations in the Washington suburbs.

Infinity executives insist they want to be a voice for all the Hispanic communities in the area, promising a variety of programming from sports and news to weather and traffic updates.

The station has hired evening and afternoon hosts, and is in the process of hiring an entire staff.

"We plan to serve the needs of the whole community, not only in the music we play but the topics we address, the issues we discuss, the charities we support," said Michael Hughes, senior vice president at Infinity.