By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN?: Friday 17 November, opens 25 November and runs through 6 January 2024 RUNTIME: 140 minutes (with a 20-minute interval)

You join us in 1945 in Andalusia, Spain in the titular home of Walter’s Bernarda Alba as she and her 5 daughters mourn the loss of her husband and their father.

• Read on for reasons including how this retelling of a classic reminds how often and wrongly women can be viewed as secondary to men

The villages of rural Spain were renowned for their discrimination against women reinforced by the Catholic church and here Normal People writer Alice Birch re-imagines this classic by gay author Federico Garcia Lorca (Yerma, Young Vic) who was shot by firing squad during the Spanish Civil War 2 months after Alba was written.

Frecknall directed Romeo and Juliet at the Almeida this year and the multi monsta-winning Cabaret at The Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre and here fills the stage at the cavernous Lyttelton Theatre with a dolls house-like set that boasts 10 rooms including a living area where most of the action happens and a kitchen.

It does mean we’re occasionally given a glance into the daughters’ bedrooms and at 1 point we see eldest daughter Angustias, 39, drawn beautifully by Rosalind Eleazar (Uncle Vanya, Harold Pinter Theatre and Apple’s galloping Slow Horses) as she masturbates alone while thinking of her boyfriend.

None of the daughters are married and the set occasionally has the feel of a prison as Walter (Henry IV, Donmar at King’s Cross Theatre) prowls its extremities brooding menacingly and the siblings plot their escape.

Isis Hainsworth who also appeared in Frecknall’s Romeo and Juliet plays youngest daughter Adela who dresses in green while others are in mourning black and frolics with the hens and displays the most lust for life of Alba’s inmates.

Traditionally Angustias’ beau Pepe ‘el Romano’ doesn’t appear onstage as the sexual tension, repression and passion heighten but here we see him dancing enticingly yet never speaking as we learn he is the object of the affection of more than just the tragic Angustias.

We particularly enjoyed the counsel of Thusitha Jayasundera’s housekeeper Poncia but Walter’s Alba is absolutely and unswervingly dominant and as soon as curtain up and a very obvious Chekhovian shotgun hanging prominently on the living room wall you know it’s not going to end well.

There’s 1 particular moment at the end of Act 1 when Andalusia’s hostility and brutality against women literally spills into Alba’s living room and is utterly horrific and will be imprinted upon your memory for a very long time.

We’re sitting at the end of row 6 at this 2nd preview and there are some minor gripes – the sound is occasionally too quiet and the complicated opening wake scene when multiple characters talk alternately in single lines will zip with greater rehearsal – but also some more difficult to solve.

Frecknall’s style is often busy and the set, described by my companion showing their age as ‘a bit Celebrity Squares’, means 1 of our least favourite London venues is filled with spectacle but often too much when less is more.

However, Walters leads an exceptional cast in a memorable and earthy retelling of a classic at a time when we do need reminding how often and wrongly women can be viewed as secondary to men.

• Main picture by Marc Brenner via Facebook courtesy National Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen Harriet Walter before or been to the National Theatre?
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