Never let it be said that Oakland Theater Project lacks ambition.
Quite the contrary, the former Ubuntu Theater’s trademark is risk-taking. After San Francisco’s Cutting Ball Theater closed in 2024, OTP has become the premiere independent Bay Area theater company for experimental new works and off-beat remounts of established classics. It’s normal for them to stage “A Streetcar Named Desire” as an “Our Town”-style piece with no sets, or to see them shrink the grand ensemble of Sondheim’s “Assassins” down to a one-person show.
Of course, ambition alone is not content. Co-founder/co-artistic director Michael SocratesMoran certainly knows how to think big when it comes to his company’s shows, as proven by2024’s lavish “Angels in America” collab with Marin Theatre. Yet, the warm reception to thatproduction may have given Moran the impression that he needs to top himself. That may explainwhy the company’s current production of Federico García Lorca’s “The House of BernardaAlba” (running through June 7 at Omni Commons in Oakland) feels as if it’s constantly hittingits proverbial head against the ceiling.
The eponymous lead, played by OTP stalwart Lisa Ramirez, contains noticeable parallels withShakespeare’s Lear (which, incidentally, Moran will direct for the company in October). Like theold king, recent-widow Alba rules her Spanish plantation with an iron fist and a worry as towhich heir is the right successor.
She longs for her five aging daughters (Sarah Jiang, Sarah Kasuga, Natalie Pasquinelli, Èssa Vilanue and Antonella Scogna) to marry and avoid a life of spinster purgatory, but very few men in the village are willing to take their chances with scions of the battle-axe matriarch. Not that she considers the commoners worthy of her girls anyway.
Also like Shakespeare, our story begins in the aftermath of a lord’s death and has the servants(Shabnam Ayuby and Jacinta Kaumbula) acting as a de facto Greek chorus. The two exist bothinside and outside of the action, making sure the house is cleaned to perfection, and with Poncia(Kaumbula) acting as an occasional confidante to her mistress. Of course, the two frequentlyhave their hands full caring for Bernarda’s increasingly senile mother Maria Josefa (AngelinaFiordellisi), who wanders through the main house like a specter of unfulfilled potential. When alocal named Pepe (Jaden Ramsay) takes an interest in one of the daughters, it presents theopportunity to break the pattern into which the family has fallen. Instead, it pushes simmeringtensions to a boiling point.
At least, they would be “simmering” if Moran gave his cast more than two modes. KnowingLorca’s work is to know it frequently veers into the operatic, but Moran has his cast deliver linesin either flat monotones or ear-splitting screams, which make it almost impossible to connect withtheir emotional states at any given moment.
This is a talented ensemble unable to show off those talents because they’re all reduced to instruments that play only two discordant notes.
Not helping matters is the choice to take the action out of OTP’s FLAX art & design residence in favor of the church-like Omni Commons. Sure, it allows for a larger audience around Sam Fehr’s grave-like thrust set, but it must have made dialogue hard to hear during rehearsals, as all the actors are mic’d during the performance. This leads to audio dissonance, as all the voices come out of the same speaker, making it often impossible to tell who’s speaking at any given point.
Paradoxically, opening night was helped by the numerous audio SNAFUs in which the micsoccasionally gave out. The actors were still easy to hear and it was much easier to connect voiceswith faces.
Lorca’s final play is a gothic ensemble piece that revels in its all-femme energy. OTP’sadaptation of it comes off more like a high school production that doesn’t quite have a grasp onthe text. It’s the sort of misfire that can only really happen when several talented people aren’tgiven constructive pushback. The fact that Pepe, a never-seen character in the text, is physicallyseen here is the first wrong step of many. The show doesn’t suffer from a lack of talent,it’s just that gathered talent deserved better.
Charles Lewis III claims to be an award-nominated journalist, culture critic, and performing artist born and raised in San Francisco. He alleges to have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, the San Francisco Examiner, and many more. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.
‘THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA’
By Federico Garcia Lorca, presented by Oakland Theater Project
Through: June 7
Where: Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes with no intermission
Tickets: $10-$70; oaklandtheaterproject.org