The House of Bernarda Alba (National Theatre) London Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (15)
See it if you like plays where the sense of impending tragedy weighs down from the very start and the acting is very compelling
Don't see it if themes of societal expectations and how they limit women and suck the joy out of their lives are not your cup of tea Read more
See it if You want to see a great Lorca play in a questionable adaptation, not as brilliant as the original
Don't see it if Don't like the dramas, or you expect to get the original text of a brilliant play.
See it if you'd enjoy a play with an all-female cast set in a Spanish village on relationships, family dynamics and heated conflicts.
Don't see it if you cannot endure a slow rhythm throughout the show, or are affected by some of the sensitive issues discussed.
See it if A good set.
Don't see it if You want something to easily understand. It was all rather confusing
See it if Want to see great staging and intense acting. A strong female cast, with brilliant staging.
Don't see it if Don’t want intense and female centric, classics theatre.
See it if Performances are brilliant, staging is excellent. It's very intense and nothing cheerful here. Lorca was a queer man 100 years ago, not easy
Don't see it if It is very dark, and maybethey'd have been better with a more traditional translation. Like the swearing. Sisters, Pepe is not worth it.
See it if You like family drama You enjoy a great set You want to see a play with almost only women in it
Don't see it if You can't cope with watching physical and verbal violence You don't like intense plays You don't like family drama Read more
See it if you’d like to see a great women led cast
Don't see it if you prefer plays with traditional directing, you’re easily bored by lots of pointless dialogues and swearings for no reason
Critic Reviews (9)
“This production has so many ideas flung at its source that some are bound to stick and some not...Federico Garcia Lorca’s play is one of the greatest of the 20th century, but its power is consistently undermined by the staging...Nevertheless, the doubly shocking denouement will live long in the memory, both for its hyper-realistic staging and its closing speech which... is the most shattering in theatre.”
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“The endings to the first and second act are among the most shocking things I’ve seen on stage recently. Not your average Christmas show then, but this is bracingly good and important.”
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"There is great innovation here but the terrible swell of passion, frustration and intensity needed for the play to gain its full and devastating tragedy does not reach a head."
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“The production doesn’t always quite hold the tension between naturalism and expressionism that it seeks...It’s surprisingly funny at moments, always pointed and sharp...But the strength of the whole lies in a magnificent ensemble cast, each bringing surprising notes to characters who could become one-dimensional...It’s a superb night of theatre, a new look at a difficult but always timely play.”
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“It’s a wrenching watch, a mix of contemporary and ancient, social and elemental tragedy, and a grim demonstration of how, as Birch puts it, simply being born a woman can feel like the greatest punishment. Bernarda’s climactic call for “silence” is the final stifling of a desperate female cry.”
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"It takes too long to ignite, yet this slow-burn staging flickers with a kind of compulsion. It’s just curious that, even when it generates a pale flame of passion, it remains so chilly."
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“Lorca’s play is an impressive exercise in empathy for 1930s rural women and their trapped, constrained lives, one that treads emotional territory that few other men of his time dared to explore. But it has limits. To a 21st-century audience, its protests against the traditional female frustrations of enforced celibacy and sewing can feel tired and predictable.”
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“This isn’t Frecknall’s finest moment – it’s hard to avoid melodrama with Lorca, and this production does often feel overwrought.”
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