Julliard Drama's "As Five Years Pass" by Spanish Playwright/Poet F.G. Lorca

The final Julliard Drama production was "As Five Years Pass" by Spanish playwright/poet Federico Garcia Lorca.  Lorca (b. Spain 1898-1936) writing was on the forefront of surrealism & futurism.  His plays are both beautifully poetic and disturbingly absurd.  The play's themes deal with unrequitted love and impending death.  Lorca's complex pros spoke to embracing hope, love & the preciousness of life itself.  This was an ambitious production that felt mockingly absurd and irritating.  The opening tempest had a motley cast perform a bizarre choreography not unlike "Rocky Horror Picture Show."  Strange characters came and went with little semblance to rhyme or reason.  Perhaps, the best way to enjoy the performance was to embrace the eerie dreamlike quality to prevail.  The interesting art direction provided a surreal aesthetic.  But, the play was precocious and disquieting.  The students ardent performances were admirable but unremarkable, except for Justin Cunningham as the Old Man.  His presence served as an admirable anchor to a rambling of nonsense amidst intermittemt exquisite prose.  I appreciated the students' interpretion of Lorca's work but I did not enjoy it.  Lorca was executed by Spanish Nationalists at the start of the Spanish Civil War for his Marxists views and sexual orientation.  This serious undertaking felt awash with flotsam and jetsam leftover from a storm.