Scenes from The House of Bernarda Alba by Jagriti Theatre
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Federico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright and theatre director in the early 1900’s. He wrote The House of Bernarda Alba in 1936, just two months before he was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
The play, which will be presented by Jagriti Theatre for the first time ever, revolves around control, power, freedom as well as the lack of them.
In the play, Bernarda Alba declares an eight-year mourning period, following the death of her husband. However, with five unmarried daughters still at home, this decision becomes the reason for unhealthy and negative emotions to fester among family.
“I have always enjoyed Lorca’s work and this is one of only three plays he wrote in his lifetime,” says Arundhati Raja, founder-trustee of Jagriti Theatre, adding, “I was quite keen on it as I would have loved to have played the role of Bernarda. I’ve been wanting to do an all-woman play and this was the first one I thought of.”
Arundhati says *hile the play may seem to be about women in a patriarchal society, “there’s so much more to it — power and freedom, as well as the loss of it, and what that does to individuals.”
She adds that though The House of Bernarda Alba was written in 1936, Lorca’s brilliance shines through. “It reads like a modern script. Contrary to other works of the time, there are no long monologues and the plot unfolds through seemingly simple dialogues. That stood out to me as a script.”
Scenes from The House of Bernarda Alba by Jagriti Theatre
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Another aspect of the play that appealed to Arundhati was Lorca’s description of it. “On the title page of the play, he referred to this work as ‘a photographic documentation of the life of women in rural Spain’. I found it interesting that he spoke of a medium that was fairly new at the time, and especially since he was known more as a poet than a playwright.”
“It piqued my interest in thinking how we could represent this aspect in our work. I have done the set design in black and white. Also, black-and-white photographs will be projected at the beginning and between each act; in our own way of presenting a live photographic documentary.”
Though the idea of a monochromatic set and presentation of the play is hers, Arundhati says she has not adapted or revised the script. “I’m from a generation that has worked only with scripts and we had a lot of fabulous ones to choose from. For me, it has always been about looking at the lines of through the eyes of the playwright; they had a vision, and they wrote the dialogue. It is not for me to change it.”
According to Arundhati, there is a tendency to say many plays, though written long ago are still relevant, but with its themes of class inequality, gender divide, repression and sexuality, The House of Bernarda Alba remains pertinent today.
Scenes from The House of Bernarda Alba by Jagriti Theatre
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Artistes performing in the play include Munira Sen, Padmavati Rao, Mayura Baweja, Priyanka Chandrasekhar, Kalyani Kumar, Yamuna Kali, Samragni Dasgupta, Urvashi HV and Garima Mishra.
The House of Bernarda Alba will be staged at Jagriti Theatre on August 22 at 7.30pm, and on August 23 and 24 at 3.30 and 7.30 pm. The play is suitable for audiences aged 12 and above. Tickets, priced at ₹400, are available on BookMyShow.
Published – August 20, 2025 06:29 pm IST
