{"id":97020,"date":"2014-10-03T09:05:46","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T13:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=97020"},"modified":"2014-10-08T09:01:03","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:01:03","slug":"new-play-explores-theme-of-silencing-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/10\/new-play-explores-theme-of-silencing-opposition\/","title":{"rendered":"New Play Explores Theme of Silencing Opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From<\/a>
From left, Dale AJ Rose, Martin Sola, and Nicholas Urda in the Connecticut Repertory Theatre production of ‘Olives and Blood,’ at the Nafe Katter Theatre Oct. 2-12. (Gerry Goodstein for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The age-old theme of suppressing the opposition is explored in playwright Michael Bradford\u2019s new play \u201cOlives and Blood,\u201d which highlights the life and controversial death of Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca.<\/p>\n

The play, the first in the Connecticut Repertory Theatre\u2019s 2014-2015 season, runs from Oct. 2 to Oct. 12 at the Nafe Katter Theatre.<\/p>\n

Lorca was an internationally renowned iconic member of the Generation of \u201927 in Spain, a group of poets who advocated working with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. He expanded his writing to plays, and worked with the surrealist painter Salvador Dali. After becoming a critic of the Nationalist factions led by General Francisco Franco, he was executed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, reportedly at the hand of the Nationalists. His remains were never found.<\/p>\n

Bradford, an associate professor of dramatic arts in the School of Fine Arts, says the unresolved questions surrounding Lorca\u2019s death; the issue of artistic repression during a political upheaval; and the continuing power of a poetic voice provided many choices in writing the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think theater is not concerned with reality; theater is concerned with telling the truth,\u201d he says. \u201cEven if we know everything about a particular historical moment, it\u2019s still right for the theater, for the artistic conversation. I teach theater history. I love Aristotle\u2019s adage that basically the poet is more necessary to the community than the historian. I feel it is our job to take apart what we think we know and put those separate pieces on the stage and play with them to have a larger conversation about what we know. This was certainly easier because so little is known [about Lorca] and it\u2019s been mythologized.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that power always wants to silence a voice that is disparate has another narrative; they get the opposite of what they want. They kill the person, but the voice explodes into the universe.
\n— Michael Bradford<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bradford says he tries in his writing to think about the larger universal context within which a play is happening. In \u201cOlives and Blood,\u201d the effort to silence an opposing voice represents a recurring theme throughout history.<\/p>\n

\"Nicholas<\/a>
Nicholas Urda stars as the poet-playwright Federico Garcia Lorca in the Connecticut Repertory Theatre production of ‘Olives and Blood.’ (Gerry Goodstein for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe idea that power always wants to silence a voice that is disparate, has another narrative; they get the opposite of what they want. They kill the person, but the voice explodes into the universe,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019d think by now people in positions of power would know that, but they continue to do the same thing. It\u2019s nice to know that power hasn\u2019t gotten any smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradford had mostly pursued an African American focus in his writing until he was teaching about Lorca in class.<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought one of his plays into class to break it down, and fell in love with the poetic nature of his writing,\u201d he says. \u201cI began to research his life and was absolutely fascinated. I decided I wanted to try and write about him and figure out how to tackle him as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing the play provided Bradford with the opportunity to incorporate some of Lorca\u2019s powerful words into the script. He includes rehearsals for some of Lorca\u2019s plays, and poetry from the collection of the writer\u2019s prose and poetry, \u201cIn Search of Duende,\u201d which was edited by Lorca scholar Christopher Mauer, a professor of Spanish at Boston University. Mauer will attend one of the post-production talkbacks of \u201cOlives and Blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know [Lorca], you get a little bit of his background [from the play],\u201d Bradford says. \u201cIf you don\u2019t know anything, hopefully you leave with an appreciation of how he thought about his work and why we still know him and what was so important about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mart\u00edn<\/a>
Mart\u00edn Sol\u00e1 stars as Juan Luis Trescante Medina, the aging fascist who claims responsibility for the murder of poet Federico Garcia Lorca, in ‘Olives and Blood.’ (Gerry Goodstein for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The time Bradford spent exploring Lorca\u2019s world has also influenced some of his upcoming projects \u2013 another play based on Lorca\u2019s time in Cuba, and a new class focusing on Lorca and two other noted Spanish playwrights, Lope DeVega and Pedro Calderone LaBarca.<\/p>\n

The CRT production of \u201cOlives and Blood,\u201d which is directed by Gary English, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Theatre, is a contrast with the debut of the play in London last year, owing to different directorial visions and casting. Bradford says he enjoys seeing how his works are presented.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the theater because I put this thing together in my room, and when my writing comes into the world, it looks different every time,\u201d he says. \u201cI am personally enthused by that. I wouldn\u2019t want to direct my own work because it lives in another way with all these artists that attach themselves to it \u2026 I love the process almost as much as I love the product.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the CRT production of \u201cOlives and Blood\u201d and for tickets, go to the CRT website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theater professor Michael Bradford’s ‘Olives and Blood’ highlights the life and death of a Spanish writer executed during the Spanish Civil War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":97015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-97020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 05:28:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97020"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97042,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97020\/revisions\/97042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/97015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97020"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=97020"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=97020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}