The House of Bernarda Alba

Who'd have thought that Lancashire accents could portray rural Spain so effectively? Glenda Jackson and her colleagues get to the heart of the matter, desperate women in a poor and backward village...and that's the same thing the world over. Northern England is equivalent to Southern Spain in this regard, although the setting is definitely Spanish (with patios etc.).

These people would probably be happier if they belonged to the peasantry; worse for them, they belong to the "lace-curtain" set, with just enough status to burden them with the obligation of looking respectable. 100 years ago, that was truly stifling, and this domestic drama actually resembles prison-movies like The Hill (1966).

The essence of the story is that this is a household full of daughters growing old in the bitterness of spinsterhood because their tyrannical mother (Glenda Jackson as Bernarda) won't allow them to marry beneath their station - and everyone is beneath their station in this one-horse town. To make matters worse, Bernarda's husband has just died, and custom dictates that the family should go into eight years of mourning, similar to a prison sentence. This is especially galling to the youngest, Adela, whose head is full of dreams of love. I don't want to spoil things, but I will say that the ending is sudden and violent.

Glenda Jackson does a magnificent job, just as she did in The Maids (1974), and I am going to watch out for other movies with her in; I watched this one 3 times in the space of a week. A friend who has ties to the theatre-world exclaimed that it was spectacular and first-rate. Going back to The Hill, I am struck by how much Jackson's character resembles Ian Hendry's - physically thin and frail, but as vicious as an electric fence.

It's a pity this movie is so hard to get hold of; apparently other movie-versions of the play aren't as good.

I watched this play on TV when I was 14 or so. I never watched any theatre on TV and always thought it was the type of boring to death thing. I don't usually go to the theatre. But this play was amazing. I remember I was glued to the screen for whatever long it lasted non stop, the acting superb, the dialogue was heavy and serious but you wouldn't be able to lose your interest, suffocating heat, the repressed emotions culminating in the suicide. I think I still remember every single scene from the play especially Poncia's. Never watched it again and don't know what they've done with it, looks like they prefer to show Jeremy Kyle or Eastenders now. From my modest opinion its an unforgettable acting masterclass, would love to have it on DVD.

This is one of the most powerful versions of this play you could ever hope to see. Every now and then, you witness a performance and think "gee, this really has to be the DEFINITIVE performance of the work, the one by which I'll always measures all others"--it's THAT good.

Each actress brings to each part--large and small--total commitment, intelligence, consummate skill; the direction, staging, costumes and set designs all balance the dramatic realism with the poetic symbolism, in a way that is extremely well-suited to the play.

The play is suffocating--it is meant to be--and dark, gloomy, and, as befits a story about unsatisfied women, a roller-coaster of hysterics, tears, shrieks, and desperate whispers. This performance of it is one you can return to over and over again, for the sheer genius and musicality of all the performers, a SUPERB English translation that never detracts from the play, and the extreme power of the emotions treated by the play.

It belongs in any serious collection of dramatic films, an is one of the most successful television versions of a play which I have ever seen.