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Antonella Scogna portrays Adela in Oakland Theater Project\u2019s \u201cThe House of Bernarda Alba.\u201d<\/p>\nAudiences entering the small theater find the players, all women,\u00a0already onstage, seated, motionless,\u00a0barefoot, encapsulated in a sort of glass box.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0stunning set design by Sam Fehr beautifully\u00a0represents\u00a0the prison in which the characters in Oakland Theater\u00a0Project\u2019s\u00a0dazzling\u00a0\u201cThe House of Bernarda Alba,\u201d Federico Garcia Lorca\u2019s drama adapted by playwright Chay Yew and choreographed by Bear Graham, are trapped.<\/p>\n
Among the figures, one young woman dances, with\u00a0a rose in her hand.\u00a0She is\u00a0Adela (Antonella Scogna), the youngest, the most beautiful and the most defiant of matriarch Bernarda Alba\u2019s five daughters, all of whom are in black to mourn the recent death of their father.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Antonella Scogna portrays Adela in Oakland Theater Project\u2019s \u201cThe House of Bernarda Alba.\u201d<\/p>\n
They must mourn for the next eight years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As director Michael Socrates Moran explains in the program, Lorca wrote the play in 1936 as fascism was taking over Spain. Two months later,\u00a0the Spanish Civil War began, and Lorca was assassinated by the rising government. His body was never found.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like the people of Spain, the five daughters are\u00a0essentially imprisoned\u00a0by a rigid force.\u00a0Stone-faced, merciless\u00a0Bernarda (the brilliant Lisa Ramirez)\u00a0wields\u00a0her cane\u00a0like a lethal weapon.\u00a0Cold\u00a0and authoritarian,\u00a0she\u00a0ultimately\u00a0will\u00a0turn out defeated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The set is so\u00a0entrancing that it takes a while to sort out the characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0crazy old granny (a funny, scary Angelina Fiordellisi) in a wedding dress; Poncia (the terrific\u00a0Jacinta\u00a0Kaumbulu),\u00a0the tough, fearless servant who\u2019s the only one to stand up to Bernarda; the timid oldest daughter (Sarah Jiang), betrothed to the handsome Pepe (Jaden Ramsey, who dances silently, seductively around the periphery of the glass house), drawn to Adela\u00a0like a magnet; another daughter, the bitter Martirio (Essa\u00a0Vilanue), and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A chorus of villagers takes on various roles, including beggars.\u00a0All of the\u00a0principals\u00a0create\u00a0vibrant, distinctive characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wealth and poverty, social standing, desire: all are in conflict as the sisters fight with each other, sometimes physically, under Bernarda\u2019s iron-fisted rule. Desperate villagers almost storm the gates, and\u00a0the\u00a0suppressed romance between the besotted Adela and silent Pepe threatens to implode.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Lisa Ramirez is excellent as the matriarch in Oakland Theater Project\u2019s production of \u201cThe House of Bernarda Alba.\u201d <\/p>\n
Everything plays\u00a0out\u00a0in\u00a0the tight confines of the glass house. The action\u00a0\u2014often projected, with other images in a sort of dreamscape on an upstage panel\u2014intensifies the sense of claustrophobia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every detail feels carefully\u00a0observed\u00a0in this production,\u00a0enhanced by Michael Kelly\u2019s score, Yew\u2019s slightly modernized text (\u201cThe men of this town are for sh\u2013,\u201d sneers Bernarda)\u00a0and\u00a0Isadora Duskin Feinberg\u2019s costumes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, though, Lorca\u2019s drama is melodramatic, repetitive, and\u00a0overlong,\u00a0even though\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0only slightly\u00a0more than an hour and a half. Yet\u00a0as servant Poncia prophesies, \u201cA storm is brewing and when it erupts it will sweep us all away.\u201d\u00a0It pretty much does. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n