The House of Bernarda Alba

Synopsis

The House of Bernarda Alba follows the plight of the widow Bernarda. After her husband's death, she locks the doors and windows against the world and imposes a strict period of mourning on her five daughters. Under the shadow of the church and the rules of society, the women conflict and spiral into emotional chaos.

Our Review:

24 March 2003

Auriol Smith’s powerful production of Frederico Garcia Lorca’s final play is ideal material for the claustrophobic confines of The Orange Tree’s theatre- in- the- round, and is superbly set by Julie Nelson’s spare design, evoking rural Spain with its Moorish influences. The settings are beautifully lit by John Harris which bear witness to the overbearing Andalusian heat, and the gathering gloom of dusk culminating on stage, with an onslaught of madness and violence.

Lorca was a homosexual liberal, during the most tumultuous period in modern Spain’s history. His writing marked him out as an enemy of the fascists and an early casualty of the Spanish Civil War. He was assassinated in 1936 before The House of Bernada Alba could be staged.

This multi-layered text draws analogies between the traditional code of honour (for which read superstition, law and religion) and the illiberal and inflexible attitudes of the political right, seeking to supp...

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