Review: The House of Bernarda Alba at TAPAC

Michele Hine as Bernarda Alba captures the spiteful cruelty of a petty tyrant. Photo / Supplied

On one level The House of Bernarda Alba is a documentary study of domesticity in a 1930s Andalusian village, but by relentlessly focusing on one particular household, Spanish playwright Federico Lorca delivers a brilliantly penetrating analysis of the psychology of authoritarian politics.

Written in 1936, a few months before Lorca was executed by Franco's thugs, the play has achieved iconic status as a 20th century classic largely because of its remarkable prescience about Europe's life-and-death struggle with fascism.

Margaret Hollins' thoughtfully crafted production emphasises the contemporary relevance of the work with some chilling allusions to culturally sanctioned honour killings that persist within the inward-looking ethnic communities that are part of any modern multicultural city.

Perhaps the most horrific moment in the play comes when Bernarda Alba and her daughters rush to join a mob that is executing a brutal punishment on an unmarried village woman who has fallen pregnant.

Michele Hine's portrayal of Bernarda Alba captures the spiteful cruelty of a petty tyrant but also manages to convey a clear sense that the matriarch is herself a victim of her own pathological fear of losing face.

In the role of the maid Poncia, Sylvia Rands commands the stage and provides an anchor point for the swirling passions of the sisters as she dispenses earthy peasant wisdom.

Rands uses a wonderful array of vocal techniques to hold the audience spellbound as she swings from contemptuous irony to explosively timed humour and a brief moment of heartfelt anguish as the play reaches its electrifying climax.

The seething emotions of the play could easily be overplayed but the whole cast bring a lightness and humour to their roles - most notably in Yvette Parsons' whimsical take on the elderly mother's madness. Younger members of the cast sometimes struggle to hit the right tone for Lorca's richly poetic realism but Nisha Madhan winningly expresses the younger daughter's reckless romanticism while Jodie Hillock impressively conveys the anxiety of a woman who seems torn between resigned submission and transgressive rebellion.

The production shows a loving attention to detail and it is a delight to find this rarely produced classic delivered by a company that displays such passionate enthusiasm for their craft.

The House of Bernarda Alba will be on at TAPAC until Saturday.