The House of Bernarda Alba & Mother Courage

PUENTE has also used Theatre of the Oppressed techniques when producing traditional plays. Lina de Guevara directed Lorca's "House of Bernarda Alba" and Brecht's "Mother Courage". These plays were work- shopped using Image Theatre, Cops in the Head and Rainbow of Desire techniques. They helped the participants reach a visceral understanding of their characters and situations and were instrumental in securing the success of these productions.

(photos by Barbara Pedrick)

Director's Comments (The House of Bernarda Alba):

This project came about because a group  of Victoria actors felt a need to work in depth, for an unlimited time, with a very good play, and without the constraints of money, short rehearsal periods, small casts, and concerns about box office appeal.

As our play we chose one of the masterpieces of Spanish theatre, Federico Garcia Lorca's The house of Bernalda Alba, a powerful, complex play that provides several strong roles for women and gives an extraordinary insight into human nature and the historical realities that have shaped many women's lives. Because oppression is one of the topics of the play, we chose to use Theatre of the Oppressed exercises to work on character development.

At first, we did not assign roles. Instead, we each played all the roles, and this provided an interesting variety of perspectives on the characters. We worked in this way for a year, meeting once a week. Most of the people in this production were part of the process since the beginning. We feel we really went inside The House of Bernarda Alba and that we got to know Bernarda, her daughters, her servants, and the reasons why their lives unfold as they do.