THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA Alba impressive but comes on too strong
By: Ray Conlogue
November 7, 1987
TORONTO IS privileged to see The House of Bernarda Alba , a great tragic
play by Federico Garcia Lorca. But the CentreStage production that opened
Thursday night, although it catches fire from time to time, is marred by
the uneven abilities of the cast and a heavy-handed, portentous style.
This style arises because tragedy - and even serious drama - is rarely
seen in the theatre nowadays. On the rare occasions when a director and
cast get a chance to do it, they are overwhelmed by preconceived ideas of
what is "tragic." Usually this involves excessive and unyielding
intensity, which only ends up making the audience uncomfortable and prone
to laugh at the wrong times.
Michael Dewell, whose translation was used by director Francois
Barbeau, was asked recently how to approach this obsessive play about a
brutal mother and her five daughters. "There are many ways to do the play,
but the one thing not to do is to come on like gangbusters. It's so alien
to our world. Just play it. Trust it."
Although there is considerable talent in this show, that trust just
wasn't there. Barbeau's production was overwrought almost from the opening
moment, when two servants discuss the imminent return of Bernarda Alba
from burying her husband.
The scene has humor in it, and both Maria Vacratsis and Viola Leger
play it. But there are also unaccountably ponderous moments. Vacratsis is
a maid, scrubbing the floor. In a brief moment she chases away a beggar
woman she fears will get table scraps she is entitled to. The moment is
meant to show the fear and poverty of Alba's servants, but it is also an
everyday event: the maid is used to chasing away beggars.
Instead, Barbeau has Vacratsis play it like the crack of doom. The
interloping beggar is a mysterious shrouded figure. As she leaves, she
hacks and spits a huge gob on the polished floor. Lightness of touch is
not in the air.
This heavy approach carries its own doom with it, theatrically
speaking, because although a tragedy, this is not a pure tragedy in the
Greek sense. The personalities of Alba and her daughters are sketched with
humor, and the play is laced with jokes and irony. But without a relaxed,
believable context, they appear awkward and out of place.
Fortunately, Shirley Douglas has the power and stature to achieve the
main character, the fearsome Bernarda Alba herself. Her voice is as deep
and resonant as the church bell in Michael Robidoux's effective
soundscape, and she plays (what are to us) Alba's outrageous and
improbable cruelty successfully.
When the household hears that a village girl has been caught trying to
kill her illegitimate child, Alba bellows out the door that her crotch
should be burned with hot coals. If a Torontonian were standing in an
Andalusian village and heard an old woman shouting such a thing, he or she
wouldn't believe it. So much more to Douglas's credit that she makes us
believe it on stage.
Viola Leger is also in many ways a wise choice for Poncia, Alba's chief
household servant and the nearest thing she has to a confidante. Leger's
gruff and sardonic presence accords with the character, who has the
insolence to say what nobody else will.
And when the tragedy winds to its bloody climax, Leger achieves a
simple rage and grief - as does Douglas - that is completely convincing.
The climax of a tragedy, where emotions go berserk, is always the most
difficult scene to play for a modern audience. It is to these actresses'
credit, and Barbeau's, that it works.
But Douglas's Alba is too rigid and too tempestuous. She strikes the
same note repeatedly, and we scarcely can see that Alba is a well-rounded
character (she is, for instance, fascinated with gossip) because she is
not permitted to emerge on a human level.
The daughters, too, are not believable on the simple level of a group
of sisters living together. It's true they are repressed, rural woman who
have little will of their own (by our standards). But they are human
nonetheless.
Several actors, however - notably Nancy Beatty as Magdalena and Martha
Cronyn as Martirio - play their characters so stiffly that they are
clearly telegraphing a one-dimensional situation at every moment.
Consequently, the characters remain unbelievable and a little ridiculous.
Brenda Robins is better in the pivotal role of Angustias, the eldest
daughter who has just inherited the estate and consequently received a
marriage proposal. But her fiance is really in love with the youngest
sister, the pretty and rebellious Adela, who is also well played by
Catherine Disher.
Disher in particular does what so many of the actors don't, which is
simply to trust the play and relax with her character. Robins, though she
is an intense and charismatic performer - or perhaps because of it -
deprives Angustias of certain human qualities (her self-deception, her sad
vulnerability) that would have enriched the character.
Andre Henault's set is stunning, a great whitewashed room with a
fascinating high round window that nobody can see out. And Barbeau knows
how to create arresting physical tableaux on this formidable set. But his
rigid notion of what a tragedy should be undoes much talent and many good
intentions.
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