In Five Years' Time
‘Drama in song’ by Edward Lambert based on an experimental play by Spain’s favourite poet, Federico García Lorca. This surreal work explores themes of love, identity, decay and death, yet does so in the manner of a fairy tale, clothed in fun and topsy-turviness.
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The Space Theatre, London
The Croft Hall, Hungerford 24 February - 1 March 2026 Federico: James Schouten (tenor) Bridesmaid 1 / Dying Child: Rosalind Dobson (soprano) Bridesmaid 2 / Dying Cat: Mae Heydorn (mezzo-soprano) Belisa / Italian Countess: Lucy Gibbs (mezzo-soprano) Rosita: Fiona Hymns (soprano) Pedro / Colombina: Jean-Max Lattemann (counter-tenor) Juan / Arlecchino: Chris Murphy (baritone) Fernando / Pierrot: Thomas Stevenson (bass) Music: Edward Lambert Words: adapted by the composer after the play Así que pasen cinco años by Federico García Lorca (1931) Musical Director / Piano: Alistair Burton Lighting: Simon Pike Movement: Jenny Weston Stage Director: Walter Hall The accompaniment for this production has been arranged by the composer from the original scoring for strings, clarinet, horn, accordion, percussion and harp. The performance lasts about 1 hour 50 minutes (including an interval) Read Chris de Souza's review Review in The Stage |
Unsolicited audience reactions to our production of
In Five Years' Time
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Synopsis
Scene 1 A prelude: the Two Bridesmaids ask what will become of the wedding dress. "Who will wear it?" The remainder of the cast responds elliptically. Scene 2 In his library, the poet Federico ignores the presence of Rosita, his secretary, and converses with the philosophical Fernando. Federico thinks his fiancée will be faithful during the five years until their wedding. Their discussion touches on the nature of Time. They objectify women and Federico is unsettled by visions of his future wife in old age. It's 6 o'clock on a stormy summer evening. Scene 3 In a mortuary, a Dead Child and a Dead Cat make friends and compare notes on the process of dying. "The angels didn't come", says the Child. Scene 4 In a forest, three Clowns - players from a commedia dell'arte troupe - sing and dance. Colombina's mysterious song about a search for a lover has much imaginative imagery, some of it erotic. They prepare the way to… Scene 5 Belisa's bedchamber. The first Bridesmaid sings of Belisa's desire for her lover. This turns out not to be Federico, to whom she is supposed to be betrothed, but some other man whose physical attributes she's fallen for. Belisa makes her escape to be with him, leaving the Bridesmaids distraught. Scene 6 Back in the poet's library, another friend, Juan, sings of his sexual prowess but, when he becomes explicit, Federico finds his talk distasteful. A third friend, Pedro, together with Fernando enter, sheltering from the storm. Pedro remarks that the caretaker's child has just died and this makes him morbid. Fernando was excited to witness an imminent lunar eclipse but is frustrated by the rain clouds. Rosita, tired of being ignored, resolves to leave Federico's employment but admits she loves him. Federico is relieved to let her go. Scene 7 In the mortuary, the Cat reminisces. The Child agrees that it was good to wander in the woods 'nostrils ahoy!' (Interval) |
Scene 8 In Venice, Rosita has befriended Belisa in her 'reincarnation' as an eccentric Italian Countess. Both women fantasise about the course of their failed relationships. The Countess describes a scene with her abandoned lover in the Paris Opera where 'there are terraces which open onto the sea'.
Scene 9 Federico makes his way nervously to Belisa's bedchamber to claim her as his bride. The Two Bridesmaids give him the news that she has fled. They urge him to go in search of Rosita who, they think, has been waiting for him for five years. Scene 10 In the forest, the three Clowns muse upon the nature of dreams. When Federico enters, they guide him towards Rosita whose siren voice, like a nightingale's, is heard in the distance. His approach is hindered by the re-appearance of the Countess who continues her diatribe about her ex-lover. A sextet ensues: Rosita still loves Federico but is under no illusion now. The Countess has yet more to say about her past. Federico resolves that there's no life without Rosita. The Clowns sing a ballade, and on this they all eventually coalesce: "If dreams conjure skies on the plains of Time, Time drowns belief in those dreams of mine." Rosita finally gives her answer to Federico: she loves him always, but knows he can't give her the physical love she craves. She puts him off for five years. Scene 11 A Danse Macabre for the 'souls and skeletons' in the mortuary. The Child and Cat are fearful of being buried. Scene 12 Back in his library, Federico feels he's 'a phantom in life's gallery searching for the body it should occupy.' Rosita enters asking what to do with the dead cat in the garden… for a moment we seem to be back at the beginning of the opera and it's still 6 o'clock on a stormy summer evening. The Child and Cat lament the world's beauty that is lost to them. They are taken away by 'the hand of God'. To the cry of Viva la muerte! (the battle cry of the Fascist Legionarios) Federico's three acquaintances enter and shoot him dead. His body has never been found. |
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A story that sings...
The themes and dreams of In Five Years' Time tell of the Poet’s search for identity and the nature of time and truth. Full at first of energy and promise, the characters seem to slide into disillusionment and decay except for a trio of circus clowns who, by contrast, are happily immersed in their own theatricality. The Poet, worried that his style of drama is out of fashion, also steps in and out of the work he has created, even after his own murder. At the start of the opera, its central character, the poet Federico, is betrothed to the voluptuous young Belisa. Since she is only 15 (marriage at 14 was legal in Spain until 2015), this gives him an excuse to postpone the wedding for five years. Her Bridesmaids express frustration at the delay. Impatient for sexual fulfilment, Belisa takes a lover. Later in the opera, she is 'reincarnated’ as an eccentric Italian Countess with delusions of glamour and grandeur; hence, perhaps, the description of her as a Mask. Her scene with Rosita is set in Venice, the home of masquerade. Federico’s three male Friends are cynical, ebullient and sensitive in turn. Fernando dwells on the past, Juan lives promiscuously in the moment, while Pedro worries about the future. They metamorphose into a trio of Clowns who appear from time to time and guide Federico through the 'forest' of life. Like Shakespearean fools, they are more knowledgable than they appear to be. Meanwhile, lost in a world of books and dreams, Federico ignored and spurned his assistant, Rosita, but when the Bridesmaids tell him of Belisa’s infidelity, he resolves to seek Rosita out again. Although she once loved him, and perhaps does so still, she exacts revenge by telling him to wait five years. Disillusioned and emotionally distraught, Federico meets a tragic end when assassinated by his erstwhile friends who’ve turned against him and embraced the Falangist cause. |
In a surreal sub-plot, a neighbour’s child has tragically died and local youths have cruelly stoned a cat to death. The Cat and Child compare notes as they lie in the mortuary; they are apprehensive about the afterlife to where they eventually pass over at the end of the opera.
If all this sounds grim, the drama still manages to smile, largely by virtue of the language which places the action in a never-never land of nightingales, dawns, mountain-tops, clouds, rivers, oceans, mirrors, breezes, flowers and moons… and a theatre-within-a-theatre. This fairy-tale may not end happily but, in the telling of it, an old-time variety show never feels far away. |
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In Spain, January 1930, the long-standing military dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera was overthrown and this event led to the establishment of a Republic the following year. In the Constitution that was then adopted, the power of the Catholic Church was severely curtailed and progressive policies of rights, freedoms and suffrage were carried out. As part of these reforms, the Republic’s Ministry of Education funded a theatre company charged with bringing drama to rural communities and towns which were otherwise deprived of culture: “La Barraca”, as it was called, was decades ahead of its time.
La Barraca performs Calderon's Life is a Dream
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Federico García Lorca, then famous as a poet, was appointed its director and as a consequence wrote the trilogy of revolutionary plays that have made him world famous: Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernada Alba each throw a spotlight on social conventions surrounding the repression of women. In Five Years’ Time immediately precedes those works and was heavily influenced by the burgeoning surrealist movements of the period. Lorca’s friends Salvator Dali and Luis Buñuel had collaborated in the making of the film Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the poet was experimenting to see how this wild and wonderful new style could translate into live theatre. This operatic version inevitably irons out some of the conceptual difficulties of Lorca’s draft which was dated 19th August 1931. The play is also remarkably autobiographical and, with hindsight, prophetic. Five years later to the day (accounts differ slightly), as the Nationalists rose up on the outbreak of civil war, Lorca was executed and his body has never been found. The play received its first professional production in Spain only in 1978 and has seldom made its way into the English-speaking world. This is a free translation and adaptation of the text, designed to be shown in smaller venues.
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