The House Of Bernarda Alba: La casa de Bernarda Alba (Student Editions)

The House Of Bernarda Alba: La casa de Bernarda Alba (Student Editions)

Bernarda Alba is a widow, and her five daughters are incarcerated in mourning along with her. One by one they make a bid for freedom, with tragic consequences. Lorca's tale depicts the repression of women within Catholic Spain in the years before the war. The House of Bernarda Alba is Lorca's last and possibly finest play, completed shortly before he was murdered by Nationalist sympathisers at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Inspired by real characters and described by the author as 'a true record of village life', it is a tragic tale of frustration and explosive passions in a household of women rulled by a tyrannical mother. Edited with invaluable student notes - a must for students of Spanish drama “Best of all is Ann Mitchell's superb Bernarda Alba, who presides over her daughters like a malevolent mother superior. As polished and shiney as her own furniture, a husk of a woman who puts pride and honour before love and generosity, and who is so out of touch with her own heart that she ignores all the signs of the coming disaster, content to rule her house with her eyes wide shut.” ― Lyn Gardner, Gaurdian, 30 April 2009 “It is a play about what happens to hearts when they are walled up and denied the opportunity to sweel with love and happiness'” ― Lyn Gardener, Gaurdian, 30 April 2009 “In Bernada Alba's household, sexual control, pious display and honour make a pressure cooker of repression.” ―Caroline McGinn, Time Out London “Lorca's last play - castigating crushing social convention and woman conspiring in their own oppression.” ―Siobhan Murphy, Metro “It is a famously grim tale..the tension mounts and never flags.” ―Libby Purves, Times “Lorca's theme, as the critic Eric Bentley once wrote is, 'the attempt to preserve honour in the face of the sexual instinct'.” ―Michael Billington, Guardian “Aching physical desire and the death-wish of a woman who says of her lover, 'When I look in to his eyes, it's like I'm slowly drinking his blood'. It is a riveting evening.” ―Michael Billington, Guardian Federico García Lorca, one of Spain’s greatest poets and dramatists, was born in a village near Granada in 1898 and was murdered in 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Gwynne Edwards has prepared a new free adaptation of the play, from a literal translation by Jennifer Bakst. Gwynne Edwards is a specialist in Spanish theatre and cinema and, until recently, Professor of Spanish at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales. He has also translated and adapted more than forty plays from Spanish, French and Italian, many of which have been staged at major theatres in Britain and the United States. He has published three collections of Lorca's plays with Methuen Drama, and also collections of seventeenth–century Spanish and contemporary Spanish–American plays adapted from the correspondence and prose writings of Dylan Thomas. His books include Lorca: The Theatre Beneath the Sand, Lorca: Living in the Theatre, Dramatists in Perspective: Spanish Theatre in the Twentieth Century, The Discreet Art of Luis Buñuel and Almodóvar: Labyrinths of Passion. Jenny Stevens was an Associate Lecturer for the Open University and currently combines educational consultancy work with teaching and writing. She is the co-author with Pamela Bickley of Essential Shakespeare: The Arden Guide to Text and Interpretation (2013) and Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Text and Performance (2016). Chris Megson is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has taught and published widely in the field of modern drama, and is editor of The Methuen Drama Book of Naturalist Plays . Other works include: Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present (with Alison Forsyth, 2011), and Modern British Playwriting: The 70s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations (2012). Matthew Nichols graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2003 and has been teaching and leading outstanding Drama and Performing Arts departments for over a decade. Matthew also has extensive experience at a senior level with several exam boards, and was responsible for writing one of the reformed GCSE qualifications in Drama. In addition, Matthew works with schools, colleges, universities and theatres across the country. Matthew is a successful and sought after Drama education consultant, and was one of the founders of Drama Defined, which specialises in delivering high quality Drama education courses to staff and students. Matthew is currently Head of Drama at Manchester Grammar School. You can reach him on Twitter @matthew_drama. Used Book in Good Condition