‘House’ Is Grim Place to Visit

“The House of Bernarda Alba” is a house of horrors in Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1936 tragedy. As we witness the tyrannical Bernarda Alba put the clamps on her five adult daughters, forbidding them from leaving her home in order to protect them from the vicious world outside, we too should feel imprisoned.

Yet in Margarita Galban’s staging for the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 3, we get to stretch our legs in the lobby during two long intermissions. The intensity dissipates, and the play’s admirable economy is barely noticeable.

The production has its merits. Foremost among them are Carmen Zapata’s stern mien and commanding voice as Bernarda. This is the third Bernarda that Zapata has done for the Bilingual Foundation--the first was 20 years ago. She hasn’t lost her touch.

Zapata also did the English translation with the late Michael Dewell. It has a few awkward phrasings that sound too self-consciously, almost laughably dire. Lorca insisted on virtually photographic naturalism in productions of this play, but that becomes especially difficult in translation. Maybe the play was never quite as naturalistic as Lorca wanted it to be.

The daughters are well cast. Erica Ortega plays Adela, the youngest and most rebellious, with flashes of fire. Denise Blasor’s Martirio, who yearns after the same lover as Adela but isn’t so bold, has a searching, unsettling gaze. Alejandra Flores’ Angustias, the oldest sister and the one who’s actually engaged to the man in question, looks perfectly miserable, which is exactly right. Eugenia Cross and Cecilia Bogran play the less pivotal sisters well.

Edith Diaz’s busybody housekeeper is too busy, with plenty of indicating gestures, perhaps to compensate for her thick accent in the English version. Another problem is Margarita Stocker’s Maria Josefa, who is too young and blond as the 80-year-old, white-haired mad grandmother, despite obvious attempts to make her look more wrinkled. Lucki Wheating does fine double duty as the maid and as an elderly neighbor.

Estela Scarlata’s set is pretty but too open, doing nothing to suggest the characters’ sense of claustrophobia. Ted Owens’ music has a foreboding spirit. Robert Fromer’s lighting could use more shadings.

The play is unrelentingly grim. “King Lear” is relatively light-hearted. So it’s a hard sell under any circumstances, yet it’s easy to imagine a tighter and more natural-sounding production making more of an impact. Perhaps that happens in the Spanish-language version, but the English-language production keeps us at arm’s length.

* “The House of Bernarda Alba,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, Theatre 3, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. In Spanish: Oct. 23-26. In English: Oct. 16-19, Oct. 30-Nov. 2. Ends Nov. 2. $18. (213) 225-4044. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.