The Stage

The House of Bernarda Alba

Published Friday 27 January 2012 at 10:43 by Mark Shenton

Sartre’s Huis Clos, recently revived under the auspices of the Donmar Warehouse, is set in an afterlife hell, and famously suggests that hell is other people. Lorca’s tragedy The House of Bernarda Alba, by contrast, is set in a living hell, where the cause is even closer to home, specifically a grieving, dominating matriarch who - having buried her husband as the play begins - is intent on utterly controlling the lives of her five unmarried adult daughters.

This grimly gripping play is given a stifling intensity in Bijan Sheibani’s new production for the Almeida, which arrestingly relocates the action to rural Iran, adding to its sense of otherworldliness and the overpowering sense of traditional roles for its women to follow.

That world is magnificently conjured in Bunny Christie’s epic design, stunningly lit by Jon Clark with bursts of blinding light punctuating the scenes. It is also strikingly (and occasionally stridently) exemplified in Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo’s fierce assumption of the title role.

Emily Mann’s new version of the play takes the further step of changing some names into Iran-sounding ones, so the oldest daughter, 39 year old Augustius becomes Asieh (Pandora Colin), engaged to the unseen Pepe, and Bernarda’s trusted long-serving maid Poncia becomes Darya (Jane Bertish). But there are no accent changes by the daughters, so the usual problem of Lorca in English occurs that you wonder just why their Hispanic (or in this case Iranian) passions are running so high amongst these English roses.

But Lorca’s play, which has previously proved its endless capacity for malleability and surprise that has included Michael John LaChiusa’s wonderful musical adaptation staged at the Union last year, nevertheless casts its dark spell just as Bernarda Alba herself does over her family.