excerpt from THE LABYRINTH OF DESIRE by Caridad Svich adapted from Lope de Vega
featured in InTranslation (April 2008 issue) a web-only section of The Brooklyn Rail edited by Jen Zoble
http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/articles/0408_Svich.html
[original author: Ugljes Sajtinac]
Huddersfield
- TCG National Theatre Conference Global Tapas special event, MN (2007) dir.Joel Sass
- TUTA @ Victory Gardens Studio, Chcago, IL US premiere: 2006) dir. dado
- The New Grop redaing series, NY (2006) dir. Dalia Ibelhauptaite
- New Dramatists INTERPLAY, NY (2006) dir. Michael Sexton Caridad Svich’s US adaptation of Sajtinac’s HUDDERSFIELD is featured in the web-only IN TRANSLATION feature of The Brooklyn Rail curated by Jen Zoble http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/articles/6_17_Sajtinac.html
- This text received a reading in New York City in March 2005 under the direction of Michael Sexton.
Full-length. Four men (30), one man (60s), one woman (16). Running time: 2 hrs.
Serbia’s acclaimed young playwright tells a raucous tragic-comic tale of college buddies caught in a long night of partying, sex, madness and growing up. A look at new Europe’s domestic front between unfinished wars. This translation was developed as part of INTERPLAY, a playwright exchange project of New Dramatists funded in part by the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
[original author: Federico Garcia Lorca]
The House of Bernarda Alba
- The Pearl Theatre, NY (premiere: 2005) dir. Shep Sobe
“Svich’s translation is a raw and earthy rendition of the play. Highly recommended.” NYtheatre.com
Dona Rosita, or the Language of Flowers
- Caffeine Theatre, Chicago, IL (professional premiere: 2005) dir. Jennifer Shook. www.caffeinetheatre.com
- Dartmouth College Dept of Theatre, NH (2004) dir. Don Levit
Blood Wedding
- Brooklyn College Dept of Theatre, NY (2003) dir. Peter Wallace
As Five Years Pass
- INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center, NY (world premiere: 1998) dir. Michael John Garces and productions at: Brown University Dept of Theatre, Rutgers/NJIT, Bard College, Southern Methodist University, and Juilliard School of Drama.
Chimera
- The Drama League Directors’ Project, NY (1989)
Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in the Garden,
- Playwrights Horizons Theatre School/NY (2003) dir.Yoni Oppenheim
- University of California-San Diego (1988) dir. Maria Mileaf
Yerma
- HotInk Festival, New York University (2006) dir. Kay Matschullat, score by Elizabeth Swados.
The Public
- New Dramatists, reading (2005) dir. Michael John Garces
The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife
Buster Keaton Takes a Walk
- Originally commissioned by INTAR Theatre, New York City in 1998
The Maiden, The Sailor and the Student
- Originally commissioned by INTAR Theatre, New York City in 1998
More On Federico Garcia Lorca Translations by Svich:
“Anyone who’s never understood Lorca should take in this quietly affecting production, lyrically translated by Caridad Svich.” Time Out Chicago (November 3-10, 2005)
“Caffeine Theatre presents the world premiere of Caridad Svich’s new translation of Federico García Lorca’s Doña Rosita, or The Language of Flowers, directed by Jennifer Shook. Now in its second season, Caffeine Theatre mines the poetic tradition to create language-intense, idea-driven performances and to explore the potential of art for social change. This rarely-performed play by Lorca weaves a whimsical elegy to lost love and fleeting time. Rosita weathers a long engagement in the house of her flower-obsessed uncle, lace-obsessed aunt, and meddling housekeeper. As time passes, a stream of comic visitors reflects the technological advances of the early twentieth-century, as well as the stagnant cultural attitudes that trap women in an unchanging society. The piece’s poetry evokes a moment in time in a lost Granada. Director Jennifer Shook says, “Caridad Svich has resurrected Lorca’s play… her translation is funny, painful, beautiful, and full of people who question the world demandingly even as they love the world passionately.” www.chicagopoetry.com
“[Recommended Viewing] The rarely staged “Dona Rosita or the Language of Flowers” is a charming and disturbing drama in which Lorca uses poetry to record a woman’s bitter humiliation in the role she has been delegated by society. Filled with a shrewd, melancholy humor and biting social criticism, “Dona Rosita” (in new translation by Caridad Svich) is Garcia Lorca’s most complex play. Director Jennifer Shook and her 12-member cast attack the material with an unbridled verve. When it really matters, Shook and her cast come through with flying colors. One of these moments comes in the play’s final scenes, when Rosita delivers a heartbreaking soliloquy about her blind hopes for love. It is then that the quiet fire of Lorca’s words is felt at full strength.” Mary Houlihan, Chicago Sun-Times
“Svich has provided powerful translations of Don Perlimplin and Asi que pasen cinco anos as well as renderings of thirteen poems from Garcia Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York.”
Times Higher Education Supplement, UK on Impossible Theater
See also “In Other Words” Four theatrical translators unravel the intricacies of their craft. Interviews with John Freedman, Douglas Langworthy, Caridad Svich and Stephen Wadsworth by Kerri Allen in
American Theatre, Vol. 21, No. 10 (December 2004), a publication of TCG
[original author: Alberto Pedro]
Our Wide Wide Sea (Faith, Hope and Charity)
- INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center, NY (2003) dir. Max Ferra
- Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, CA (2003)
[original author: Abilio Estevez]
Havana Under the Sea
- INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center, NY (2003) dir. Max Ferra
[original author: Calderon de la Barca]
The Monster in the Garden
[original author: Silvia Pelaez]
Fever 107 Degrees
[original author: Antonio Buero Vallejo]
The Story of a Staircase
[original author: Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor]
A Little Betrayal Among Friends
- Halcyon Theatre, Chicago, IL (2011)
- Airmid Theatre Company, NY (2011)