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By John Farrell, Theatre Critic

Federico Garcia Lorca is better known in the United States for his death than his life. The poet and dramatist was murdered by fascist soldiers at the beginning of the Spanish civil war. His body was never found.

Recently Long Beach Opera offeredAinadmar, an opera by Osvaldo Golijov that explored his life and death. It’s his afterlife that is the important part inLorca in a Green Dress.This ambitious surrealist look at Lorca’s forty-day long passage through Purgatorio written by Nilo Cruz, was directed by Jennifer Sage Holmes and it stars five… yes, five different actors as the dead poet, depicting every part of himself including his sexual desires (Lorca was gay). Two women also play parts of his very diverse character. The production is currently being staged at the Casa 0101 Theater in Boyle Heights