The House of Bernarda Alba
The key to site-specific theatre is to open a conversation between space and text. Rather than attempting to shoehorn a play into a place or a concept, the task of the site-specific director is to use architecture, location, décor, and found elements as agents of storytelling. In the case of Bernarda Alba, the text calls for a Spanish manor house that is simultaneously grand and suffocating. The beauty of the La Posada hotel and its carefully crafted origin story easily accommodate the size and beauty of Bernarda Alba. Similarly, the production moved through multiple locations within the hotel, allowing the audience to share the characters’ feelings of being enclosed within the space.
