YOUNG student actors from Great Yarmouth College face their biggest challenge yet in the New Year when they perform their production of the Spanish tragedy Yerma.

YOUNG student actors from Great Yarmouth College face their biggest challenge yet in the New Year when they perform their production of the Spanish tragedy Yerma.

The second-year performing arts students are currently rehearsing Federico Garcia's 1934 tragic poem which focuses on isolation, passion and frustration, nature, marriage, jealousy and friendship in a small community where honour and reputation are all.

One of the biggest tasks will be to perform it in the round - with the audience sitting surrounding the action rather than watching the actors on a traditional stage.

The play follows the story of 18-year-old Yerma, played by Frankie Goffin, married and childless living in rural Spain with her husband, Juan.

Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession, eventually driving her to commit a horrific crime.

It is a major role for Frankie and the 17 other members of the cast, not least because Lorca wrote his tragedies in poetry. The plot emerges within the poetry in symbolic language and story lines are alluded to rather than directly stated.

One of the major scenes of the washerwomen gossiping and alluding to the problems between Yerma and Juan is much left to the audience to interpret.

Course leader Melissa Isik said: “It is a play about two very lonely people in a very claustrophobic community and trapped.

“The biggest challenges are dealing with a dramatic text and also developing sympathy with people in a different age and culture and conveying that to the 100-strong audience.”

Students studying fashion are creating costumes for the play and textiles at the college and the cast all have production responsibilities from stage-managing to publicity.

The play will be performed at the Fisher Theatre, Bungay, on February 5 and 6 at 7.30pm. Tickets are £6, £5 concessions and are available by calling the box office on 01986 897130, emailing info@fishertheatre.org or visiting www.fishertheatre.org.