Yerma director Chuck Mike works with a cast member. Photo by Fred LeBlanc

The tragic play Yerma, which focuses on motherhood and marriage and was written in 1934 by Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca (1898–1936), will be performed at Mount Holyoke's Rooke Theatre Thursday, November 9, through Sunday, November 11. (See the CSJ calendar for times.) Presented by the MHC theatre department and directed by Chuck Mike, distinguished Five College artist, the play's cast includes students from Mount Holyoke, Smith, Amherst, and Hampshire Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts.

“They've been a fantastic and committed ensemble,” says Mike, who cast the nontraditional production that combines elements of dance, music, and dialogue in a drama that portrays conflicts of honor and passion, duty and love in an Andalusian society defined by rigid cultural and religious codes. The story, says Mike, “shows what happens in a society that won't bend.”

The play's central character, Yerma, longs for a child her husband does not provide for her. Judged harshly by her community for her barren state, and desperate, she seeks solutions through manipulation and a conjuror. But Yerma's actions lead to a brutal conclusion, a violent tragedy that Lorca intended to resonate symbolically, says Mike. The play is one of a trilogy of dramas about the struggles of women in rural Spanish society.

Mike points out that Lorca, a bisexual in a unsympathetic society, was interested in exposing the oppressive nature of certain societal codes. Lorca was a witness to the oppression of Franco's fascist regime, notes Mike, a regime that repressed radical opinions, and he was ultimately shot and killed by Franco's soldiers at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

Lorca, the most popular Spanish poet of his generation, was not only a dramatic innovator—embracing a more primitive, action-oriented theater—but a talented musician, who identified through his poems, plays, and essays with the downtrodden and alienated. Mike's vision of Yerma manifests itself through a blending of artforms that is typical in Nigerian theater and seems particularly apt for this play. Yerma is performed by a fifteen-member cast playing more than fifty roles, says Mike. He characterizes the singing, music, and dance as interpretive, and notes that while the play is primarily in English, “it is laced with Spanish songs and dialogue.” The abstract set design recreates the “tone, texture, and color” of Lorca's Spain.

Mike, who has a special interest in dramas that examine social issues, says much of his work is “born out of an activist nature.” A native of Brooklyn, New York, Mike studied drama at Fordham University, and was subsequently awarded an International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) fellowship award, which brought him to graduate school in Nigeria in 1976. Today he and his Nigerian wife and two children reside in Lagos. He worked with Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka for eight years at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), where Mike taught acting and directing over a period of fourteen years. In 1991, Mike founded the Performance Studio Workshop in Ife, an experimental, training, research, and performance arena with a social service orientation, and Collective Artistes, a theater-oriented management, consultancy, and promotional organization.

Mike describes the ensemble works he directs and “devises” as “edu-tainment.” Largely geared toward “low literate and local lingua franca audiences” in Nigerian communities, his improvisational “playlets” and full-length dramas—performed in rural dwellings, market places, schools, and on conventional stages—have revolved around issues of social concern. He speaks of “theater for development and change” and has worked for private, governmental, and international organizations, such as UNICEF and the Nigerian Federal Road Safety Commission, on issues of health and safety. He cites one exemplary interactive performance in a rural Nigerian community, which inspired 6,000 people to get immunizations within an eight-day period. In contrast, the government spent an entire year getting merely 10,000 immunized. This, he says, demonstrates the power of theater. “Theater can be a moving force, in not just educating, but empowering the community,” he says. “It is not enough to give a man a fish,” he adds, stating a popular Nigerian maxim, “you must teach him to fish.”

Mike is also an actor and has had roles in a multitude of Western, European, and African productions that include plays by Wole Soyinka, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, and Lorraine Hansberry. He is particularly impressed with the dedication of the Yerma cast members, who have responded well to an improvisational approach. The notion of “playing,” he feels, has been “submerged by career” in Western and European theater. “The pure indulgence of the actor to fullfill a role in the name of ‘playing,' is what theater should be about,” he says. “We need to capture that word ‘to play' in the larger sense.” Here at MHC, he feels his cast has revealed a true understanding of the ensemble spirit.

In addition to directing Yerma, Mike is teaching a course at Smith College and, as a Pioneer Valley visitor, is investigating the relationship between “town and gown.” He is always researching, he says, examining the dynamics of the local community for what might become the subject of a new work.

For reservations, call the box office at x2406. Hours are 3 to 6 pm daily, and one hour prior to performance. Ticket prices are $5 general admission and $3 for students (who may attend free on opening night) and senior citizens.