Yerma

Ursula Rani Sarma, Federico García Lorca, Ursula Rani Sarma

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849430432
• eBook ISBN: 9781849437066
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Unfortunately due to copyright restrictions this book is not available for sale to customers in the United States of America. In a remote Spanish village Yerma, a woman of full of life and passion, longs for a child but is unable to conceive. This compelling and elemental tale of a woman's quest for a child taps into some of the most universal themes of theatre - love, passion, sexuality, marriage. In this adaptation, Pam Gems has stripped the text to the poetic core of Lorca's words in all their epic glory. Vibrant and sweeping, combining elements of dance and song, Yerma is an exhilarating theatrical event.

Act One

PROLOGUE

A full moon hangs swollen in the night sky above a meadow of wild flowers.

A distant drumbeat begins like the slow ominous ticking of a clock.

YERMA, a young woman in her late twenties enters. She is beautiful in a wild sense and is carrying a silver bucket. She is garlanded with flowers and is barefoot.

She pauses and gazes up towards the sky. The moon seems to hold her in its spell. She stares at it and in time she begins to move in rhythm with the drumbeat, softly at first, setting the bucket down so that she may move more freely. The drumbeat seems to move within her as she pulls her blouse above her stomach and exposes it to the moonlight. She moves more fluidly now, a slow undulating dance, stretching her arms up towards the moon. There is something faintly and naïvely sexual about it, as if it is coming from an instinctual and raw place. The dance becomes more desperate and erratic until it seems as if she is almost out of control. When the dance is most vigorous VICTOR, a ruggedly handsome man in his early 30s, enters. He is dressed in white and also barefoot. YERMA becomes instantly still and stares at him. He seems ghostly in the moonlight. He looks at YERMA for a moment and then a small boy, also dressed in white and barefoot, enters running. He takes VICTOR’s hand. They both look towards YERMA as if waiting for her to speak but she seems frozen by the very sight of them. Bells chime in the distance and YERMA suddenly holds her arms out to VICTOR and the boy, but they are already disappearing. The bells chime again, closer this time as the moon changes colour to a soft pink with the first light of dawn. They chime once more, closer still, and YERMA tears her eyes away from where VICTOR and the boy stood. Roused from her reverie, she bends to retrieve the bucket from the grass and exits with reluctance as the lights fade to dark.

SCENE ONE

A neat little cottage where everything is in its place. A simple rush lantern hangs from the ceiling. Yerma enters and sets the bucket upon the floor. She opens the curtains back over the small window then takes a woollen baby’s blanket that she is crocheting from the bucket and gathers it to her in folds. She holds it like she is cradling a baby, she gets lost for a moment. There is an element of the manic about YERMA, as if she has two speeds, one childlike and enthusiastic and the other introspective and dark. The switch between the two can happen as quickly as a switch being flicked.

YERMA: (Singing softly.)

Hush my little baby, hush my little one,

for I will build our wooden hut beneath the setting sun,

beneath the golden stars my love,

there in the sleeping fields,

I’ll sing to you, I’ll sing to you,

while you sweetly dream.

(A clock chimes somewhere within the house and YERMA is roused from her song. She shakes the blanket into the air and folds it quickly while checking the clock and glancing anxiously offstage.)

Juan? (Beat.) Juan?

(She sets out breakfast things in a hurry, bread, milk, butter etc. She sets out a jug of water and a bowl. She also takes from the bucket a little posy of wild flowers and sets them on the table where JUAN will sit.)

Are you up?

JUAN: (Offstage.) Yes. (Coming in with his shoes in his hands, he sits at the table and puts them on. JUAN is very particular about what he does, about things being in straight lines and his laces being done up just so.) What time is it?

YERMA: It’s early still. (YERMA butters his bread and fusses over him. He looks at the flowers in her hair.)

JUAN: Your hair…

YERMA: (She takes the flowers from her hair and holds them out to him.) The first violets of the season, I picked them for you.

JUAN: (Looks at her.) When?

YERMA: This morning when I brought the hens their feed.

JUAN: In the dark?

YERMA: I’m not afraid of the dark.

JUAN: I don’t like you going out before the sun is up.

(YERMA pours water into the bowl for JUAN to wash. He washes his face and neck carefully and precisely.)

YERMA: I was awake, I thought to feed them so you wouldn’t have to.

JUAN: Why didn’t you call me?

YERMA: (She affectionately runs her fingers through his hair which he deflects.) You looked so tired, you looked like you were dreaming.

JUAN: (JUAN re-fixes his hair just so with a comb from his pocket, three strokes on either side.) Are the cows gone up yet for milking?

YERMA: (Removing the bowl of water.) I think I heard their bells go by in my dreams.

JUAN: (Looks at her.) Dreams?

YERMA: Daydreams maybe, I heard bells either way.

JUAN: (Points to the window, he is bothered by what he sees.) The curtains.

YERMA: (Finishes preparing his breakfast and holds the plate for him to take.) To let the morning light in, just to make the place more cheerful.

JUAN: I don’t like people looking in.

YERMA: And who would be looking in?

JUAN: I don’t like being on display, what is ours is no one else’s business but our own. (He takes his coat to go, YERMA watches him.)

YERMA: You’re leaving?

JUAN: I am already late.

YERMA: For what? The fields?

JUAN: Of course.

YERMA: So what if you’re late? They’re your fields, they will wait for you. You have to eat something.

JUAN: I’ll eat after.

YERMA: Won’t you take a cup of tea at least?

JUAN: What for?

YERMA: For nourishment, for strength, what do you think feeds your bones? It’s no wonder you’re so thin, you work too hard, look at you, you’re nothing but skin and bone.

JUAN: Men who work hard are usually thin…and strong, you don’t get arms like this by sitting around eating your fill.

YERMA: (She moves close to him and tries to pull him into a dance.) I liked your arms the way they were when you held me on our wedding day. These days I hardly know you. You look like my husband but you’re paler, thinner, more drawn, you look like half my husband, where do you leave the other half? Out in the fields? (Teasing.) What good is it to anyone out there? (JUAN looks away, she flings her arms about him.) Why don’t we go down to the river and swim? (JUAN is shocked, he pulls her arms from his neck.) It would do you good to feel the rush of water about you, it would put some life back into you. It’s only two years since we wed and already you’re disappearing before my eyes, it’s fat you should be getting not the other way round.

JUAN: (Like a child.) Well don’t look at me…if you don’t...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three