• Overview
• Staging information
• Translations
• Sample translations
• Production history

Productions in Spanish

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Federico García Lorca, Pura Ucelay)

Details

Director: Federico García Lorca , Pura Ucelay
Dates: 5 April 1933
Venue: Teatro Español
Location: Madrid, Spain

Further information

This was a double production in which Lorca’s play La zapatera prodigiosa (The Shoemaker’s Wonderful Wife) also featured.

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (José Luis Gómez)

Details

Director: José Luis Gómez
Dates: from 15 October 1990 to February 1991
Venue: Teatro Bellas Artes
Location: Madrid, Spain

Further information

This was a double bill also featuring Quimera, a little-known work by Lorca.

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (José Luis Matienzo)

Details

Director: José Luis Matienzo
Production company: Escarramán theatre company
Dates: from 27 November 1997 to 1998
Location: Ciudad Real, Spain

Further information

This production toured Spain. It began with a live performance of guitar music based on a tune recorded in 1933 featuring Lorca on piano.

Detailed information about this production is available by clicking on the Amor de Don Perlimplín section of the director José Luis Matienzo's website.

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Gisela Cardenas)

Details

Director: Gisela Cardenas
Dates: from August 2004 to September 2004
Venue: Repertorio Español
Location: New York, United States

Con Belisa ... (Jaume Villanueva)

Details

Director: Jaume Villanueva
Dates: from 27 April 2005 to 29 April 2005
Venue: Repertorio Español
Location: New York, United States

Further information

This production had a simultaneous English translation. It was a reconsideration of the play from the perspective of Belisa.

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Emily Lewis)

Details

Director: Emily Lewis
Production company: Baraka
Dates: June 2005
Venue: Teatro Karpas
Location: Madrid, Spain

Further information

This production was performed over three days in Spanish with English surtitles (translator unknown).

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Anna Escurriola)

Details

Director: Anna Escurriola
Dates: 12 June 2005
Venue: Teatro Joventut
Location: L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Emily Lewis)

Details

Director: Emily Lewis
Production company: Baraka
Dates: from 27 July 2005 to 31 July 2005
Venue: Arcola Theatre
Location: London, United Kingdom

Critical response

The strong central performances in this production were praised, as was the musical score. The reviewer for Theatre Guide London noted that the production captured ‘both the play’s whimsy and high passions beautifully’ (Berkowitz 2005).

• Berkowitz, Gerald. 2005. Review of Don Perlimpín con Belisa en su jardín at the Arcola Theatre, London, Theatre Guide London, http://www.theatreguidelondon.co.uk/reviews/edinburgh%202005-1.htm [accessed January 2010] (Online Publication)

Further information

This production was performed in Spanish with English surtitles (translator unknown).

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Emily Lewis)

Details

Director: Emily Lewis
Production company: Baraka
Dates: from 5 August 2005 to 29 August 2005
Venue: C Central Theatre
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Further information

This production was performed in Spanish with English surtitles (translator unknown).

Los amores de Don Perlimplín y Belisa en el jardín

Details

Production company: Los Actores Spanish Language Theater Company
Dates: from 13 March 2008 to 15 March 2008
Venue: El Paso Playhouse
Location: El Paso, United States

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Irina Bourkeskaya)

Details

Director: Irina Bourkeskaya
Dates: June 2008
Venue: Sala Tribueñe
Location: Madrid, Spain

Critical response

The critic Javier Villán favourably reviewed this production. He was very impressed by the flamenco singing of Antorrín Heredia, the actor playing Don Perlimplín (Villán 2008).

• Villán, Javier. 2008. Review of Don Perlimpín con Belisa en su jardín at the Sala Tribueñe, Madrid, ‘Lorca erótico y flamenco’, El Mundo, 3 June (in Spanish)

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Doriam Sojo)

Details

Director: Doriam Sojo
Dates: from 21 August 2008 to 23 August 2008
Venue: ArtEspacio Plot Point
Location: Madrid, Spain

Further information

These were rehearsed readings of the play.

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Juan Carlos Calderón)

Details

Director: Juan Carlos Calderón
Dates: from 6 September 2008 to 26 October 2008
Venue: Teatro Dionisio
Location: San José, Costa Rica

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Juan Caballero)

Details

Director: Juan Caballero
Dates: from 9 September 2008 to 14 September 2008
Venue: Teatro del Mercado
Location: Zaragoza, Spain

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Antonio Díaz-Florián )

Details

Director: Antonio Díaz-Florián
Dates: from 21 March 2009 to 25 April 2009
Venue: Teatro Espada de Madera
Location: Madrid, Spain

Further information

This long-running production foregrounded parallels between the life of García Lorca and the character of Don Perlimplín. Radio programmes from García Lorca’s lifetime were broadcast during the performance to emphasise the relationship between the play and the actual experience of the playwright. The play featured puppets.

Lorca: Amor en el jardín (Love in the Garden)

Details

Production company: Théâtre sans Frontières
Dates: October 2011
Venue: Various UK venues
Location: Touring the UK, United Kingdom

Further information

This production is in Spanish, performed by a mix of UK and Spanish actors. More information on the production can be found on the Théâtre sans Frontières website.

Productions in English

The Love of Don Perlimplín for Belisa in His Garden (Joan Littlewood)

Details

Director: Joan Littlewood
Based on translation: The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden: An Erotic Lace-Paper Valentine (1941) by James Graham-Lujan , Richard O'Connell
Dates: from 1945 to 1951
Location: United Kingdom

Critical response

Gwynne Edwards comments that the play shocked British audiences of the 1940s and early 1950s because of its sexual subject matter. He notes:

Howard Goorney, who played Don Perlimplín, has noted that ‘Some were so disgusted they crossed the street to avoid me. . . . I suppose it’s not surprising that in that time and place some people were disturbed by an old man’s obsession for a woman young enough to be his daughter.’ (Edwards 2009: 56)

• Edwards, Gwynne. 2009. ‘Theatre Workshop’s Translations of Three Spanish Plays’, New Theatre Quarterly, 25.1, 52-62

Further information

This was a long-running touring production by the Theatre Workshop, going to London, Kendal and Edinburgh. The translation of this production is not attributed to anyone. However, Gwynne Edwards notes that it is doubtless that of James Graham-Luján and Richard O’Connell published in 1941 (Edwards 2009: 56).

Edwards also outlines the musical choices made for this production:

Lorca’s text called for piano music in relation to Belisa’s first appearance, for guitar music as an accompaniment to her sexual longing, and for the garden scene to be a serenade, while in the Madrid production he introduced sonatas by Scarlatti. Littlewood’s choices were rather different, with flamenco underpinning Belisa’s eroticism, a grave pavane the dignity and seriousness of Perlimplín, and the music of Manuel de Falla the tense drama of the final scene. (Edwards 2007: 312)

• Edwards, Gwynne. 2007. ‘Theatre Workshop and the Spanish Drama’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23.4, 304-16

• Edwards, Gwynne. 2009. ‘Theatre Workshop’s Translations of Three Spanish Plays’, New Theatre Quarterly, 25.1, 52-62

The Cobbler's Wife; Don Perlimplin (Ray Barron, Victor Dixon)

Details

Director: Ray Barron , Victor Dixon
Based on translation: The Love Between Don Perlimplin and Belisa, in His Garden Green. An Erotic Cartoon in Four Scenes by Victor Dixon
Dates: from 12 February 1974 to 16 February 1974
Venue: Manchester Unity Theatre
Location: Manchester, United Kingdom

Further information

This production was of two of Lorca's plays: La zapatera prodigiosa (translated as and performed under the title The Cobbler's Wife) and Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (translated as The Love Between Don Perlimplin and Belisa, in his Garden Green. An Erotic Cartoon in Four Scenes and performed under the title Don Perlimplin). Victor Dixon translated and directed The Cobbler's Wife. In the case of Don Perlimplin, Ray Barron directed the performance based on Victor Dixon's translation.

During the performance of Don Perlimplin, the play's translator Victor Dixon introduced the play by showing reproductions on screen of pictures of the aleluya that Lorca based the character of Don Perlimplín on. Dixon showed these accompanied by comic rhyming couplets.

During the performance of The Cobbler's Wife, the play's translator and director, Victor Dixon, appeared as 'The Author' in a Prologue, introducing the play.

How Don Perlimplin Adored Belisa and in his Garden Tried to Please Her (Andrew Pratt)

Details

Director: Andrew Pratt
Based on translation: How Don Perlimplin Adored Belisa and in his Garden Tried to Please Her by John Edmunds
Dates: 21 May 1998
Venue: Battersea Arts Centre
Location: London, United Kingdom

The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in his Garden (Sue Foss)

Details

Director: Sue Foss
Based on translation: The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in his Garden by Jim Nichols
Dates: from 8 February 2001 to 10 February 2001
Venue: Worcester Polytechnic Institute Theatre
Location: Massachusetts, United States

The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in the Garden (Xerxes Mehta)

Details

Director: Xerxes Mehta
Based on translation: The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in the Garden (2000) by Caridad Svich
Dates: from 1 December 2005 to 10 December 2005
Venue: University of Maryland Baltimore County Department of Theatre
Location: Baltimore, United States

The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in his Garden (Susan Kendall)

Details

Director: Susan Kendall
Based on translation: The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden: An Erotic Print in Four Scenes (1990) by Gwynne Edwards
Production company: Eastenders Repertory Company
Dates: from 28 February 2006 to 30 March 2006
Venue: Eastenders Repertory Company
Location: San Francisco, United States

Further information

This production was part of the ‘100 Years of Sex Acts’ series by the Eastenders Repertory Company.

Don Perlimplín and His Love for Belisa in His Garden (David Zinder)

Details

Director: David Zinder
Based on translation: The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden: An Erotic Lace-Paper Valentine (1941) by James Graham-Lujan , Richard O'Connell , The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden: An Erotic Print in Four Scenes (1990) by Gwynne Edwards
Production company: California Repertory Company (Cal Rep)
Dates: from 17 November 2006 to 16 December 2006
Venue: Studio Theatre
Location: Long Beach, United States

Critical response

One reviewer was impressed by the lasting impact of this production, writing:

Whether you grasp every detail of Lorca's illusory tale is unimportant. Like a haunting dream or nightmare that is so strong you can’t forget it, what counts is its cumulative effect: dramatically, visually, viscerally and emotionally. (Gottlieb 2006)

• Gottlieb, Shirley. 2006. Review of Don Perlimplín and His Love for Belisa in His Garden at the Studio Theatre, Long Beach, http://www.davidzinder.com/Reviews_5.html [accessed February 2010] (Online Publication)

Further information

In this production the two Duendes or Sprites were increased to four. The play incorporated fragments of Lorca’s poetry as well as quotations from his other plays. David Zinder used a combination of the 1963 edition of the translation of the play by James Graham-Lujan and Richard O'Connell and the translation by Gwynne Edwards.

• García Lorca, Federico. 1963. ‘The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden: An Erotic Lace-Paper Valentine’. In Five Plays: Comedies and Tragicomedies, trans. James Graham Lujan and Richard L. O’Connell, pp. 105-30. New York, New Directions Publishing

• García Lorca, Federico. 1990. ‘The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden: An Erotic Print in Four Scenes’, in Plays: Two, trans. Gwynne Edwards. London, Methuen Drama

The Love of Don Perlimplín (Ana Skye)

Details

Director: Ana Skye
Based on translation: The Love of Don Perlimplín by John O'Neill
Dates: from 10 December 2008 to 12 December 2008
Venue: The Old Anatomy Museum, King’s College London
Location: London, United Kingdom

Further information

This production was staged alongside a production of The Jealous Lover by Miguel Cervantes, also translated by John O’Neill. The production was presented by the Department of Spanish and Spanish American Studies, King’s College London.

Productions in Japanese

Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Kei Jinguji)

Details

Director: Kei Jinguji
Production company: Ksec Act
Dates: from 20 September 2006 to 21 September 2006
Venue: Teatro de La Abadía
Location: Madrid, Spain

Further information

The company that staged this, Ksec Act, is Japanese. The production was in Japanese but also had Spanish surtitles.

Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 12 May 2011.

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