Theatre / The House of Bernarda Alba, by Federico Garcia Lorca, adapted by Karen Vickery with the assistance of Andrea Garcia, directed by Karen Vickery. At ACT Hub, until March 29. Reviewed by JOE WOODWARD.

Written nearly 90 years ago, Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba is unsurprisingly nuanced in contemporary terms of suppression and power. 

Filled with interpersonal savagery and the creation of a not so metaphorical cage with bars on the windows, we see sophisticated women being reduced to basic instinctual rivalries under an extreme authoritarian family structure.

As one woman, Adela, attempts to break from this constricted environment, the others are provoked to contain her spirit. This same basic concept can be seen in our own everyday lives in schools, work-places, family life and friendships.

The claustrophobia of cultural restriction is seen to breed the petty and deadly reactions so evident in Lorca’s play while being played out in the political arena in today’s world.

Lorca’s version of societal crabs in the crab pot presents a clear and precise warning and prediction about authoritarianism. Written at the time of the Spanish Civil War, Bernarda Alba is a very dark embodiment of power held over people and its dehumanising effects. 

Vickery has created a heated and very concentrated distillation of entrapment and contained humanity. 

When Alba instructs her subjects to release the stallion but keep the mares locked up, she might well be speaking of her family. She herself, while inflicting psychological and real pain on those around her, is also a victim of this intolerable and suffocating social structure. 

Chaika Theatre’s production emphasises the binding of those caught inside this barred up house. We see why they can’t just run away. The ensemble playing of the cast ensures the ritualising of the interpersonal constrictions enforcing imposed confinement.

Audiences are offered the opportunity to see from the outside the shape of social construction and its effects far beyond the particular case of Bernarda Alba’s household. 

Very physically detailed performances from the cast of Diana Caban Velez, Christina Falsone, Zsuzsi Soboslay, Andrea Garcia, Karina Hudson, Sophie Benassi, Yanina Clifton, Amy Kowalczuk, Maxine Beaumont and Alice Ferguson very aptly echo the voices of those women caught in the screaming nightmare of dictatorial terror. 

From the small gestural reactions to commands and the sudden changes in special relations, the cast provides an excellent example of true ensemble playing.  

While loss of that contained electrical connection occurred at some of the transition points, the production kept its sense of inevitable fate.

Anyone unfamiliar with Lorca’s artistic work should make the effort to see this production. The unique and the familiar are beautifully constructed; all be it in a most disturbing way!