MFL at the Cervantes Theatre
On Wednesday 1st March, Sixth Form Spanish students were lucky enough to travel to the Cervantes Theatre in London to watch Lorca’s play ‘La Casa de Bernarda Alba’.
The journey was remarkably quick and it gave students a chance to walk around the Theatre and even fit in a brief visit to the Tate Modern to see some of Picasso’s artwork.
Students enjoyed finding out about rural Spain in the 1930s and seeing the play be brought to life on stage. ‘La Casa de Bernarda Alba’ (Bernarda Alba’s House), which is part of a trilogy and is set near Granada where the Spanish poet was from, tells the story of Bernarda and her five daughters.
After the death of her second husband, Bernarda imposes a mourning period of eight years upon her daughters, during which they will have no contact with the external world. This is with the exception of Angustias who, being born from Bernarda’s first marriage, is the heiress and the only one to be able to marry Pepe el Romano, an omnipresent character who, despite never appearing on stage, is the main catalyst of the play.
As the wedding approaches, Bernarda struggles to maintain her suffocating grip on the family and on these women, whose appetite for defiance is growing. Lorca’s final masterpiece is a bitter and darkly comic tragedy that charts the tyranny, jealousy and desperate struggle for freedom that will tear Bernarda and her daughters apart.
