Writer: Federico García Lorca
Director: Jorge de Juan
Federico García Lorca’s final completed work before his murder by nationalist troops in the Spanish Civil War, La Casa de Bernada Alba is a tale of repression and oppression that still feels vividly necessary eighty-six years since its completion. Set in an unnamed Andalusian provincial town, a family of women — dominated by their matriarch, Bernada Alba — enter a state of mourning for Bernada’s second husband, one that is set to last eight long years of grief and isolation. For her five daughters, each suffocating under Bernada’s tight grip on their lives, it is a prospect bound only to exacerbate their current states of social isolation and sexual repression. As tensions mount in the household, Pepe El Romano, a young, attractive suitor from the village, becomes the focus as the young women battle for his favour and a chance at freedom from the iron grip of their mother’s household.
1936 Spain is a context that seems worlds away from our 2022 London on the surface; as we peer towards the future and consider our present, the comparisons become a little eerie. The zeitgeist of a country on the verge of partisan conflict; prolonged housebound isolation; political corruption and social repression could all be references to our present, or indeed Lorca’s past, and Jorge de Juan’s production of La Casa de Bernada Alba is certainly conscious of Lorca’s potential for timelessness.
Covered in white sheets, the initially dormant set is revealed over the course of the first scene to include a period set of furniture that remains throughout, unchanging as the house’s inhabitants drift in and out of the space, scurrying and whispering to avoid the wroth of the eponymous and infamous Bernada Alba. Angel Haro’s set design is effective in its stasis for the most part, driving home the unmoving permanence of the women’s milieu, yet Lorca’s avant-gardism and the surrealism of his Generation of ’27 background feels underrepresented, at least in the production’s physical aspect.
Through sound and musical integration, there is an attempt to bring a contemporary touch to the piece — perhaps in anticipation of it being perceived as a stuffy period drama. As piano chords recurrently sound, the women emotively slip in and out of their various tasks and into what appears to be improvised movement as a physical representation of their repressed mental state. In many ways these moments of removal from the world of the play work counterproductively, however, drawing us out of the tensions of Lorca’s writing and over-articulating the emotive conflicts of the play to its own detriment. In a production of such pace, it is in its silent moments that some of the greatest impact is found, with its dramatic final scene being rendered all the more fearsome for its interplay of Bernada’s calls for silence, and the women’s droning wails of grief.
The cast bring an authenticity and play to their performances, with Teresa del Olmo’s Bernada Alba in particular looming over the space and its narrative to great effect. Poncia (Maite Jiménez), as Bernada’s maid brings a life and character to her belligerence and informality with Bernada, humanising and bringing history to the otherwise impenetrable matriarch. Elena Sanz as Martirio, her second youngest daughter, is fantastically precise in thought and intention, building the plotting wit of Martirio throughout until her dubious intentions are revealed in the play’s final moments.
Overall, the Cervantes’ La Casa de Bernada Alba is a production that exudes the thought and sophistication of Lorca’s writing all these years later, perhaps as an English-language production of Tennessee William’s ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ might do so; it is somewhat lacking in a voice and novelty of its own to match this stature. While attempts to innovate are integrated into the production, these are often done so tentatively and at times undermine the play’s key thrust of repression’s conflict against desire.