The House Of Bernarda Alba review: Five sisters are stuck in a sad (and abusive) house with a very forbidding mother, writes PATRICK MARMION

Bernarda Alba’s House (Lyttelton National Theatre, London)

Judgement:

Shortly after writing The House Of Bernarda Alba in 1936, the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was shot by fascist militiamen as a homosexual and suspected communist.

In doing so, they simultaneously silenced the best Spanish writer of the 20th century and ensured that his last play would stand as a monument against them.

The drama has now been revived at the National Theatre, starring Harriet Walter as the ominous matriarch Bernarda Alba, who rules her five adult daughters like a prison governor.

It is a brutal allegory of political, sexual and psychological oppression that embodies the social conflicts of the period in the five sisters restlessly locked in the house of the title.

Each of them harbors the fantasy of catching the village hunk, Don Pepe, who is engaged to the eldest, Angustias (the always compelling Rosalind Eleazar).

Don’t get your hopes up for the color and castanets of the Iberian Peninsula, though. Rebecca Frecknall’s production, designed by Merle Hensel, sets the play in a transparent, toothpaste-tinted dollhouse, spread over three floors as a convent, prison or psychiatric hospital. Choose.

Because all the women wear black (except the youngest, who dons a bright green dress in a moment of spirited defiance), color and music are regimentally excluded as the family mourns the father for eight years. The only notable item is a brown gun that hangs on the dining room wall and acts as an unmistakable spoiler.

The big unanswered question, however, is: what does this all mean today? There is a danger that this will be reduced to a modern liberal cautionary tale.

And on the other hand, what are we to make of the claim that without men women become desperate and crazy? Perhaps because she was one of the writers of the global TV hit Succession, Alice Birch’s very spare version of the play refines the poetry of Lorca’s writing by embroidering it with unnecessary F-words.

Even Walter’s steadfast Bernarda Alba is not immune: “I’m constantly fighting to make people decent, but the goat will always go to the damn mountains.”

While such artless profanity defiles her spotless home and undermines her exalted status, Walter (who was also involved in the succession, as Logan Roy’s ex-wife, and mother of Kendall, Shiv, and Roman) cuts an impressively forbidding Mother Superior.

Covered with parchment skin like an Ordnance Survey map, she is initially distant, arid and cruel.

As things begin to unravel, we see a glimpse of the pain behind her stoic mask. And she must pay for ignoring the warnings of her farm housekeeper (Thusitha Jayasundera), the only character with the authority to speak the truth about her power.

Also notable in a tightly trained cast, Eleazar’s Angustias – forty and never kissed – combines terrifying mental fragility with alarming bursts of cruelty.

And as the youngest, Adela, Isis Hainsworth’s desire to be abused by Pepe is memorably and powerfully fulfilled through the closed gates of the family compound. James McHugh’s steamy Pepe, not normally seen on stage, also haunts the room as a silent dancer, suggestively representing a forbidden desire.

This is not a play that ends well for everyone. As great as it is, the conclusion is just as shocking as the author’s barbaric execution. Don’t expect any winter cheer.

The cheerful crazy Pan enters the stage with a golden crocodile!

Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Lyric Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue, London)

Judgement:

Tidings of great joy! Misfit Theatre, the stage anarchists behind the plays that ‘go wrong’, are in the West End at Christmas.

Their Peter Pan is a beautifully choreographed slapstick parody.

They pretend to be brave amateurs and do it like seasoned professionals. All the ingredients of JM Barrie are there, with Oliver Reed lookalike Harry Kershaw leading the chaos as the show’s fictional director, who also plays Mr Darling and Captain Hook in end-state annoyance with cast and audience.

Equally brilliant is Matthew Howell as the giant Newfoundland dog who gets stuck in the cat flap, while Greg Tannahill as Peter Pan crashes into the landscape on overhead wires and spins around like a dysfunctional satellite.

Action-packed from start to finish, the show’s narrator (Jean-Luke Worrell) is harassed by his roll-on throne, which refuses to budge and throws him away.

So much can go wrong in this frenzied fuss that there must surely be a serious risk of real injury. But while Adam Meggido’s manic production always flirts with disaster, it survives the figurative walk on the plank – and even the dangers of a skateboard-propelled crocodile.

A real hoot for young and old, which ensures that nothing can go wrong at Misfit.

Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime (Jermyn Street Theatre, London)

Judgement:

By Veronica Lee

What a tasty treat: a clever mix of Greek mythology and pantomime in which writer/director John Savournin tells the Odyssey in panto form.

His witty script is bursting with groaners – he must have robbed a Christmas cracker factory – while David Eaton’s music and lyrics are intricate and equally funny (“Here on Mount Olympus/ We can hear the whimpers”).

The stellar cast of five women – Amy J Payne, Meriel Cunningham, Rosie Strobel, Emily Cairns and Tamoy Phipps – play multiple roles and sing beautifully as they give it their all in energetic performances that only occasionally sag.

This is a wonderfully well-made show that requires no prior knowledge of the Odyssey – that may indeed help, as Mr. Savournin delves into other myths and incorporates them into his own story, which gets crazier by the minute (there’s a pig-loving monster and a hidden Trojan horse), while paying loving tribute to pantomime styles, including audience participation. Have fun.

But booing at Theater Royal Stratford East for canceling Jack And The Beanstalk’s press appearance at the last minute due to ‘technical reasons’.

Luckily, someone has found the magic beans and you can see Nikhil Singh Rai as Jack in this traditional panto until January 6.