Así Que Pasen Cinco Años

By Federico García Lorca
Directed by René Buch
In Spanish with live English translation

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see one of Lorca's least known masterpieces

Think you know Lorca? Think twice. “Así que pasen cinco años,” (Once Five Years Pass) is García Lorca’s most intimate work. The play stems from García Lorca’s desire to create a theater of “new and advanced forms and theories.” In René Buch’s words “‘Once Five Years Pass’ is one of García Lorca’s most complex and controversial plays, an exploration of his emotional and intellectual life and a result of his days living in New York.”

Federico García Lorca’s plays denounce injustice, expose the reality of the lives of the underdog and speak out loud about themes that are hushed by society. “Así que pasen cinco años” is not an exception. With this play, García Lorca pushes through boundaries and engages the audience in a theatrical experience where no theme is taboo. In the story, a young man and a woman have decided to wait five years before getting married. As five years pass there’s another woman that’s in love with the young man but he rejects her as it is his desire to marry his fiancée. Once five years pass, the bride-to-be abandons her fiancée, the young man, who in turn seeks to recover the love of the woman he rejected. But love is not eternal and an unexpected event infiltrates time and bringing surprising repercussions for the young man.

This is one of García Lorca’s most elaborate, challenging and least produced plays. It invites the audience to reflect on themes of emotions, pride, sex and gender, as relevant today as when García Lorca wrote the play in 1931, precisely five years before his death.