Garcia Lorca Reimagined

Among the classic plays that are inappropriate for Mother’s Day, “The House of Bernarda Alba” is almost up there with “Medea.” The tyrannical titular character of Federico Garcia Lorca’s drama doesn’t murder her children, but she tries hard to prevent them from fully experiencing the variety of life. After her husband dies, she decrees that her five adult female offspring will do nothing but mourn for eight years--prisoners in their own home, with marriage as the only possible escape route.

In a small village in 1936 Spain, she would probably argue, what choice did she have? If women aren’t madonnas on their wedding day, they’ll be considered whores.

The recent attention focused on misogyny, Taliban-style, is a reminder that this kind of cultural conditioning is hardly extinct. Still, it seems so remote from contemporary urban society that a theatergoer entering the Mark Taper Forum to see Chita Rivera as Bernarda Alba may wonder whether this play can be anything beyond a grim documentary about another time, another place.

Garcia Lorca’s notation that the play was “intended as a photographic document”--which appears prominently at the beginning of the English translations--seems to reinforce that point of view.

But Chay Yew, author of the adaptation at the Taper, and director Lisa Peterson generally ignore that admonition. And the play comes alive.

In an interview in the program, Yew acknowledged Garcia Lorca’s intent but said, “I was interested in bringing back some of the lyricism that permeates most of Lorca’s plays and poetry.” Yew’s text is not only more lyrical but more explicit than the authorized English translation by Richard L. O’Connell and James Graham-Lujan. The daughters’ personalities are individuated more fully, with one even becoming a budding, book-taught--albeit ineffective--feminist.

Peterson’s staging uses Rachel Hauck’s set, Mark Bennett’s score, ritualized movement and a touch of dance in ways that allow the audience to sense the feelings that are being repressed, as well as the repression itself. Likewise, we see the stifling torpor in the household without literally experiencing it inside the theater.

In another review a few years ago, I wrote that “Alba” makes “King Lear” look lighthearted. I take it back. There are rich, bawdy laughs to be found in “Alba,” and this company has found them.

Indeed, while it’s predictable enough that the always commanding Rivera has the overweening imperiousness of Bernarda well in hand, it’s more surprising to see her chuckling as she relishes a tidbit of gossip from her longtime housekeeper, Poncia.

Yew’s text also enables Rivera to express a human pang of sentiment, missing from the authorized translation, about the fate of her youngest and most rebellious daughter (Sandra Oh). This Bernarda is not a witch.

Much of the play’s comedy and its warmer tones emerge from the eye-opening performance of Camille Saviola as Poncia. She pokes her squat frame into every corner of the household, regaling the daughters with tales from her own marriage, offering words of wisdom to her employers despite their class-based prejudices against her, occasionally exploding with curt Anglo-Saxon imprecations.

Shaheen Vaaz plays the younger, quieter maid with almost equal authority. Yew’s text, in contrast to the original, provides more specific allusions to her affair with Bernarda’s late husband.

The casting of Bernarda’s old mother and daughters is one of the production’s most decisive breaks with photo-realism: Four of these women have Asian features, and the sisters’ ages are not as obvious as Garcia Lorca appeared to desire. This may alienate those who can’t manage an additional suspension of disbelief, but it will expand the meaning of the play for others beyond the confines of 1936 Spain.

Oh--the house’s free spirit--and Rita Wolf as her most envious and eagle-eyed sister handle the play’s most torrid exchanges well, including a moment in which the former sucks the latter’s finger in a brief physicalization of their repressed sexuality. Giving Lydia Look thick-framed glasses for her role as the proto-feminist is too obvious, but Look’s girlish voice adds a note of irony to her talk.

Marissa Chibas plays the eldest, betrothed sister with hapless befuddlement, accented by an amusing polka-dotted mourning outfit from costumer Joyce Kim Lee.

Eileen Galindo capably portrays the most cynical sister. Tsai Chin stalks the house as Bernarda’s mad mom, her white tangle of hair a reminder of the general decay.

The color palette is primarily white and black, with red accents and rosy margins, exemplified in beds of petals that fit the symbolic framework but are unfortunately reminiscent of “American Beauty.” A row of small trees hovers overhead.

A strolling Annas Allaf stirs up the surfaces not only with his oud and guitar, but also as the only tangible evidence that the mysterious other sex actually exists.

*

“The House of Bernarda Alba,” Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Aug. 28, 2:30 p.m. Ends with the matinee on Sept. 1. $30-$44. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes (no intermission).

Chita Rivera...Bernarda Alba

Tsai Chin...Maria Josefa

Camille Saviola...Poncia

Shaheen Vaaz...Blanca

Sandra Oh...Adela

Marissa Chibas...Angustias

Eileen Galindo...Magdalena

Lydia Look...Amelia

Rita Wolf...Martirio

Jeanne Sakata...Prudencia

Christine Avila...Beggar Woman

“The House of Bernarda Alba.” By Federico Garcia Lorca. Adapted by Chay Yew. Directed by Lisa Peterson. Set by Rachel Hauck. Costumes by Joyce Kim Lee. Lighting by Christopher Akerlind. Music and sound by Mark Bennett. Hair and wigs by Carol F. Doran. Production stage manager Mary K. Klinger.