Written between 1922 and 1926 and premiered in 1933, Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su Jardín, (The Love of Don erlimplín and Belisa in the Garden), by Federico García Lorca, is a masterpiece of farce that ends in tragedy, mixing lyrical and grotesque moments onstage.
In the play, Don Perlimplín is an elderly man who, proud of having remained a bachelor all his life, is convinced by his servant Marcolfa to marry his neighbour Belisa, a tender teenager offered unashamedly and almost by force by her mother.
But tragedy explodes on the wedding night when, despite Perlimplín’s confession of his love for Belisa, she falls for another man with whom she is having a passionate romance. Aware of the deception, Perlimplín will have to decide how to respond to this treachery.
Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) poet and playwright. He was one of the greatest Spanish writers of the 20th century. He was killed by nationalist troops at the age of thirty-eight at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
In English and in Spanish on the same performance, with two casts and two different stagings.
Cervantes Theatre, Arch 26, Old Union Arches, 229 Union Street London, SE1 0LR. Time: 7.30pm. Admission: £25, £21.
Booking: https://boxoffice.cervantestheatre.com/CervantesTheatre.dll/
