Much is unseen and unsaid in this all-female drama of death, morality, and politics.
Set in 1930s rural Spain, this piece by Federico Garcia Lorca and translated by Jo Clifford tells the story of maternal tyrant Bernada, ruling over her household of five daughters and two servants in the aftermath of her husband’s death.
She declares eight years of mourning, restricting the lives and the movements of the residents and setting them on a path of conflict. We hear of the outside world only in mutterings and rumours, with the human tinderbox of Pepe el Romano – promised to marry the eldest daughter, entangled with the youngest, and the unrequited target of another sibling – only talked of and never seen.
Sally Krykant is the titular matriarch, sparring with her daughters and maid Poncia (Jan Farrar), headed by the quietly reserved Angustias (Jo Parker-Sessions). Adela (Emma Smith) has shades of Juliet in her young, idiotic passions, with Jasmine Pearce as Martirio gradually ratcheting up her internal tension as her jealously of her sisters’ builds. Joy Davidson as Bernada’s senile, and abused, mother is a Fool like presence; outwardly confused but perhaps more wise than any would care to mention.
Whether it is the Sewell’s wide stage or Clifford’s adaptation, we miss some of the claustrophobia that might transform the personal drama into political allegory; the script is certainly lazily blunt in its class commentary at the start of the first act.
There are some interesting directorial flourishes from Sabrina Poole in the middle of the production – a foreshadowing of Adela’s fate pre-internal, and a choreographed table laying after it – but I fear these emphasise the coolness of the main action, rather than enhance it.
- The House of Bernarda Alba continues at the Sewell Barn Theatre until Saturday 18 October, tickets £12/£13.
