ABSTRACT
Translators or adaptors of the Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca face daunting challenges. This chapter looks at how Anthony Weigh’s 2011 production of Yerma, which ran for a season at the Gate theatre in London, tackled some of those hurdles. It focuses on the free adaptation, even modification, of Lorca’s radically modernist tragic vision, wherein human subjects ask questions of a universe which answers only with silence. The chapter examines from an academic perspective Weigh’s attempt to bring Lorca’s tragic vision closer into line with contemporary social and political debates on homosexuality in a mode that is more akin to a naturalist theatrical aesthetic. It deals with a consideration of what makes bringing Lorca to an English-speaking audience so complex. If recognisability is part of the battle in bringing theatre audiences to translated works, Lorca has a prominent profile to recommend him.
