The House of Bernarda Alba: November 2016

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

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Friday, 25 November 2016

Plot Synopsis and Character Breakdown

The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca

Version

The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca

Translated by Jo Clifford

Nick Hern Books – Drama Classics

ISBN: 978-1-84842-181-3

Lorca’s story of Bernarda Alba, a domineering matriarch who exerts a tyrannical rule over her five daughters is one of the most famous all female plays. The action takes place after the funeral of Bernarda’s second husband as she battles to maintain control over her increasingly fractious brood.

In the unbearable heat of a ferociously hot summer, Bernarda decrees that a period of mourning lasting eight years will be observed by the household. Bernarda’s daughters are locked inside the dark, airless house, dressed only in black with all interaction with the outside world strictly prohibited. But the voice of the dashing Pepe el Romano at the window of Bernarda’s youngest daughter in the middle of the night awakes suspicions that lead inexorably to tragedy.

Lorca’s depiction of a human spirit fighting against the hideous curtailments imposed by the very authority figure who should be nurturing it, is a powerful and poignant tragedy that is enduringly fascinating to modern audiences. Written in 1936, as Fascism descended on Spain, it is a scream of defiance against any regime that threatens to crush independent thought or desire.

Do you know what she’d like to do? She’d like to sit on your heart and slowly squeeze the life out of it.

Bernarda Alba

The joyless and tyrannical matriarch of the family, sixty years old. She is insistent on keeping her daughters in line and willing to use violence and threats to do so.

Beggar Woman

An old woman who, along with her child, begs scraps from one of Bernarda's servants. The greed of the latter in denying the request of the former helps characterize the world of the play.

Maria Josefa

Bernarda's mother, eighty years old. She is senile and Bernarda keeps her locked up in the back of the house. Though she seems to rant senselessly, she takes on the role of an oracle through the wisdom she imparts in her speeches.

Angustias

Bernarda's oldest daughter, thirty-nine years old. The only daughter from Bernarda's first marriage. Her name translates roughly to "anguish." A plain, sad woman, but the only daughter with a dowry, she is engaged to Pepe el Romano.

Magdalena

Bernarda's second-oldest daughter, thirty years old. A bitter woman, though perhaps the daughter with the most realistic sense of what limitations a woman faces in their world.

Amelia

Bernarda's third-oldest daughter, twenty-seven years old. The most frightened and gossipy of the daughters, it is she who gives in most easily to Bernarda's demands and expectations.

Martirio

Bernarda's fourth-oldest daughter, twenty-four years old. Her names translates roughly to "suffering" and reflects her persistent depression. She was once engaged to a man, but Bernarda ruined it.

Adela

Bernarda's youngest daughter, twenty years old. The only daughter who willingly flaunts Bernarda's strictures and declares her true individuality. The tragic heroine of the play. She is having an affair with Pepe el Romano

Maids/Servants

Unnamed women who serve the Alba household. They wilfully gossip with La Poncia about the house, revealing serious class resentments.

La Poncia

Bernarda's house keeper, arguably the woman who knows Bernarda best. At sixty years old, she is a voice of wisdom throughout the play, albeit a wisdom tinged with bitterness and hatred of Bernarda.

Prudencia

Bernarda's only friend. Highly religious and consumed with regret over having let her husband banish their daughter.

Women in Mourning

Women dressed in black who visit the Alba household after the funeral of Bernarda's husband.

The Seven Levels of Tension

Exhausted or catatonic. The Jellyfish. There is no tension in the body at all. Begin in a complete state of relaxation. If you have to move or speak, it is a real effort. See what happens when you try to speak.

Laid back – the “Californian”. Many people live at this level of tension. Everything you say is cool, relaxed, probably lacking in credibility.

Neutral or the “Economic” It is what it is. There is nothing more, nothing less. The right amount. No past or future. You are totally present and aware. It is the state of tension before something happens. Think of a cat sitting comfortably on a wall, ready to leap up if a bird comes near. You move with no story behind your movement.

Alert or Curious You have an eye in the back of the head. Dynamic, aware, awake, alive. Your energy is palpable.

Suspense or the Reactive . Is there a bomb in the room? The crisis is about to happen. All the tension in the body is concentrated between the eyes. An inbreath. There’s a delay to your reaction. The body reacts.

Passionate There is a bomb in the room. The tension has exploded out of the body. Anger, fear, hilarity, despair. It’s difficult to control. You walk into a room and there is a lion sitting there.

Tragic or stasis The bomb is about to go off! Body can’t move. Petrified. The body is a ball of solid tension.

Affective memory (emotional recall)

Affective Memory For Actors

The "Affective Memory" is one of the most widely known procedures in all of "method" acting. It has obtained a reputation that ranges from "dangerous" to "genius".

ACTING WITH YOUR SCARS

The actor must be willing to "act with your scars". Simply translated (which is not easy, because Shelley Winters was not a simple person), it means that when it is time for the actor to reveal those deepest, most frightening or painful experiences written by the author for the character he has created, the actor using our approach to the work has to find similar experiences in his own life, and be first willing, and then able to relive those experiences onstage as the "character".
As a general example, let's assume in a scene, you have just discovered your mother has been brutally murdered, and she was the only friend you had left in the world. The actor using this work will find an event or parallel situation from his own life's experiences, and set about to recreate that experience using an Affective Memory.

Most of us, fortunately, have never had a loved one murdered. But everyone has experienced emotions in life that could parallel that situation. As an example, the trauma that some children undergo when parents decide to divorce might leave an everlasting scar in the memory of the child. Victims of child abuse may also find material to draw upon.

Lee Strasberg recommended that the actor use memories that are at least seven years old, to avoid risking psychological trauma.

So the actor searches his memory for the parallel event, and finally decides to try to create its reliving.

The Basics

When the actor has found a parallel situation from his own life he wishes to try to relive for the life of the person in the story, he begins his work by sitting in a chair, and doing the Relaxation Exercise.

Actors attempting an Affective Memory for the first time should do so only under the supervision of a qualified instructor. Any number of unusual responses can result from this exercise, including hyperventilation and anxiety attacks.

After relaxing, the actor begins a Sense Memory exercise that will help with the recreation of the remembered event. The more specifically the actor creates the objects of the memory, the more fully the Affective Memory will work.

Strasberg stressed that during this part of the exploration, the actor should avoid "going for the emotion", by trying to "will" it to come on its own accord. He recommended the actor simply concentrate his full attention on the sensory aspects of the various elements of the actual memory: Where did the "event" take place? If in a room, describe the room in as much sensory detail as possible. Try to remember what you may have been wearing that moment, then sensorally recreate the clothing. What colour was it? What material? Feel the material. Describe the patterns on the clothing. What season was it? What time of day? What objects are in the room with you. Touch them, see them, hear them, smell them or taste them.

If the actor dedicates her sensory apparatus fully to exploring these sensory memories, without regard to the resulting emotion, she may find at any point during the exploration, the reliving of the event, with the associated emotional experience is, without warning, triggered.

It also happens that the actor may be expecting to relive an emotion associated with a specific event from his life, and a quite different emotion is produced than expected. Something which might have been very painful in childhood, might cause us to laugh hysterically now.

When the resulting emotion is not as expected, the actor notes the result of the exercise to use for reference in other scenework that may call for that particular response. Then she tries once again to find the object that will appropriately affect her for the work in which she is presently involved.

For most actors, simply recalling a past event will not produce an honest and intense emotional response. Relaxation and Sense Memory is the "combination of the safe", where the personal treasures of the actor's memories are stored away for the lifetime of the actor.

Weeks 1 and 2

BERNARDA ALBA WEEK TERM 2

Week 1

1. PRESENTATIONS - 2 hours

Groups to watch each other make notes in their actors logs and run Q and A after each one. 30 mins per group approx.

Each group must provide hard documentary evidence to be handed in so that the rehearsal room can be adorned with our discoveries at a later date.

2. THE BASIC OBJECT EXERCISE (2 hours)

ONE MINUTE OF ACTION LIVED ACCORDING TO UTA HAGEN’S 9 QUESTIONS – This work should have been started over the holidays.

Students must decide a routine, mundane moment in their character’s daily life where they can apply the principles of action and repetition. Specifically they need to think of something where they’re able to answer the following questions:

1. Who am I?
2. What time is it?
3. Where am I?
4. What surrounds me?
5. What are the given circumstances?
6. What is my relationship?
7. What do I want?
8. What’s in my way?
9. What do I do to get what I want?

Once they determine the situation they want to use in their exercise, have students write a detailed description of the occurrence.

Once students have had sufficient time to practice the exercise and scene, have them perform and watch each other individually

To performers: emphasize that they are simply trying to “recreate 2 minutes of their character’s life and bring it to presentation as if for the first time”

· Once everyone has performed, discuss their process in doing this exercise (Possible questions: what did this exercise do for you? How did it help you? How do you think it can help the performance overall?, etc.)
· Conclude by emphasizing “all technical variations of the ensuing exercises incorporate the elements you have examined in this one. Don’t omit any of them.”

Week 2

3. DEVISING – 2 hours

In 4 groups of 5 or so - work on devising theatrical scenes for exploring the world of the play and the motivations of the characters. Spend some time sharing and critiquing each other’s versions as a whole class.

12 RULES FOR DEVISING

You must create a piece using all of the following

1. Three acts corresponding to the acts of the play, each with a title (ie, Mourning, Sewing, Eating), as well as a clear beginning, middle, and end

2. Creative, multiple uses of six chairs, six fans, and Bernarda’s cane

3. An invented song using text from the play, sung by different characters at different times with different moods/intentions

4. An invented game using the chairs, fans, and/or the cane

5. An invented mourning ritual

6. An invented religious ritual using the religious text from Act I

7. An unlikely prison

8. A close-up of a private moment

9. A “daily life” montage

10. Violent closeness

11. Tender distance

12. A metaphorical image/gesture of vitality being repressed

Meisner

http://hhsdrama.com/documents/07WebSanfordMeisneronActing.pdf

Idea for Reapers song

Dawn

Dawn

Bells of Cordoba
in the early morning.
Bells of Granada
at dawn.
You are felt by all the girls
who weep to the tender,
weeping Solea.
The girls
of upper Andalucia,
and of lower.
You girls of Spain,
with tiny feet
and trembling skirts,
who've filled the crossroads
with crosses.
Oh, bells of Cordoba
in the early morning,
and, oh, the bells of Granada
at dawn!

Solea

Soleá

Wearing black mantillas,
she thinks the world is tiny
and the heart immense.

Wearing black mantillas.

She thinks that tender sighs
and cries disappear
into currents of wind.

Wearing black mantillas.

The door was left open,
and at dawn the entire sky
emptied onto her balcony.

Ay, yayayayay,
wearing black mantillas.

Ay!

Ay!

The cry leaves shadows of cypress
upon the wind.

(Leave me here, in this field,
weeping.)

The whole world's broken.
Only silence remains.

(Leave me here, in this field,
weeping).

The darkened horizon's
bitten by bonfires.

(Again I say, leave me
here, in this field,
weeping.)

The House of Bernarda Alba