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The House of Bernarda Alba is an odd choice for “York’s premier amateur theatre company”, the Settlement Community Players.
It’s a claustrophobic play centred around a closed-in, all female cast, dealing with repression and intense sexual politics and echoing the dual tyranny of state and Church in 1930s Spain – and hardly a play or playwright much in vogue within British theatre at present. As director Andy Love puts it, it’s “not particularly well-known, and sounds like a pretty dull night out.” But the nine-show run at Theatre Royal’s Studio has entirely sold out, with only a few returns available on the door.
So what has Andy done right? For starters, he’s quick to acknowledge the power of the play. “The writing’s so tight. Lorca was a poet, so nothing’s repeated throughout: it’s said once and moves on."
The writing’s so tight. Lorca was a poet, so nothing’s repeated throughout: it’s said once and moves on
This has provided challenges in itself, with Love devoting a great deal of rehearsal time to exploring possible readings of each line – seeking enlightenment from several alternative translations – as the cast worked to ensure each subtle nuance was fully clear to them. This was crucial, in Love’s view, to ensure that the production “takes the audience with you.” He opted to use David Hare’s recent version, written for the National, as he felt Hare managed to capture the poetry of the original, while introducing some innovations of his own.
This is the first time Love has worked with the Settlement Players, but the director was astounded by the strength of the actors available, and unstinting in his praise for the fourteen women he selected for his cast. “It’s been a real collaborative piece of work – a joy,” he explains of the rehearsal process. Helping to redress the testosterone deficit in the rehearsal room was stage manager Ged Murray, who along with the rest of the Settlement team, helped make Love’s inauguration into the company utterly pain-free. Love, a self-confessed “control freak”, was overjoyed to find new props appearing right on cue, “as soon as I decided I wanted something.”
The striking cross suspended from the ceiling is one such example where the designer “got it just right”. It encloses the studio space even further, hanging over the performers as the audience are privy to some “real whites-of-their-eyes theatre”, which with fourteen actors present at key moments of the play, demanded some “close choreography”.
So, drawing on the style of the theatre space, and the strengths of the actors available, perhaps Lorca’s 1936 play is a much more canny choice than it may appear. In any case, as the director explains, “I like different theatre – stuff that amateurs don’t tend to do. And I’ve never directed a play I’ve seen, because you’ll always be influenced by what you’ve seen. I like to be sure that what goes into a production is all mine and my cast and crew’s”.
York Settlement Community Players is open to people interested in acting, costume, make-up, lighting, or any other production role.
Beryl Nairn, the membership secretary for the Settlement Players, can provide further information about upcoming performances and audition opportunities. Contact her at yscp@berylnairn.plus.com.
The House of Bernarda Alba is on at the York Theatre Royal 18-28 Feb. Tickets: £10/£12 (£5 Concessions, U25s & NUS)
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