Reviews – The House of Bernarda Alba
20 March 2025Vickery has created a heated and very concentrated distillation of entrapment and contained humanity.
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.
From the small gestural reactions to commands and the sudden changes in special relations, the cast provides an excellent example of true ensemble playing.
From the very start of director Karen Vickery’s tightly adapted production played in the round at ACT HUB there is a pervading sense of foreboding in the scene between the head servant Poncia (a beautifully articulated and grounded performance by Christina Falsone as the voice of conscience) and the maid (Diana Caban Velez)
On a very warm Canberra night and in a hot theatre, the suffocating heat of the Andalucian household is powerfully and unsettlingly real. There is little to relieve the tension between the sisters as they argue and confront the restriction on their independence and desire for freedom. The mood is repressive sexually and psychologically and Vickery and her actors probe with truth and passion the bondage of their circumstance.
Sophie Benassi as Angustius sells the frustration, the release and the crashing loss as she tries to mould herself to her mother’s expectations and comes against her sisters’ own needs.
Karina Hudson as Adela, rhapsodic in her lusts, is so wonderfully selfish and possessed by her ambitions that you can see the disaster ahead without being able to stop it.
Yanina Clifton as Martirio has a great, scheming undercurrent of rage and demand for her own satisfaction, hoarding her hidden knowledge of what’s going on to release it at a time when it’ll cause the most damage.
Amy Kowalczuk is beautifully able to sublimate her own desires with emphatic embroidery, sudden glances or an inappropriate snort as Magdalena.
Christina Falsone as the housekeeper Poncia watches and attempts to advise, knowing she can’t stop the disaster that is coming down the line towards all of them.
Vickery‘s production uses the in-the-round stage as an arena for us to examine these women’s struggles, on Marc Hetu’s simple red-brick stage. Fiona Leach‘s costumes capture the mood and the heat as the women move from confining mourning wear to lounging slips and sleepwear.
It’s a true steam-train of a production, relentlessly moving to its inevitable conclusion, a sultry, tense evening of tragedy and power. This is a classic given form and power in a strong, intimate production driven by its actresses. It should be seen and savoured.
As director, Vickery has assembled an expert cast of performers who each give their characters an individual and believable life. As Bernarda, Zsuzsi Soboslay, dominates the stage with a ferocity that hides the fear, pain and sorrow beneath the surface. It is a performance of impressive depth.
All five daughters, played by Karina Hudson, Sophie Benassi, Yanina Clifton, Amy Kowalczuk and Maxine Beaumont, clearly show their relationships with each other as well as their own hopes and dreams. Particularly impressive is their playing of a disturbing innocence of life, due to their repression. The ensemble playing by these performers rings true every moment they are on stage.
Alice Ferguson as Maria Josefa, Bernarda’s mother, gives a strong and believable portrait of an elderly woman losing touch with reality but still displaying signs of the strength of the woman she once was.
The play is staged in the round, effectively drawing the surrounding audience into this closed and repressed world.
