Yerma Revival 2018

Federico García Lorca’s 1934 devastating drama is radically reimagined by Australian director and dramatist Simon Stone, who transforms the achingly powerful tale of a provincial Spanish woman’s desperate desire to have a child into a parable of modern life. Having won 2017 Olivier Awards for Best Revival and Best Actress for Billie Piper when staged at the Young Vic in London, this full-blooded production is transported to the Armory for its highly anticipated North American premiere.

Making her New York stage debut, the extraordinary Piper delivers a fearless performance as the woman—now a blogger and journalist—driven to the unthinkable by her obsession with her own infertility while brutally documenting her trauma amidst the internet-surfing blogosphere of today. Stone—in his New York directorial debut—superbly stages this requiem for lost hope in a glass encasement that transforms from luxurious apartment to garden to wild music festival at an electrifying pace. Intersecting the audience, this highly unusual staging serves as a strikingly effective visual metaphor to imitate life under a microscope and lived online while heightening our sense of voyeurism.