Director Rebecca Frecknall creates one of the finest acting ensembles of recent years for this remorseless study of repression, set in a house of women in 1930s Andalucia but horribly apt for today. Harriet Walter is Bernarda, mourning her dead husband with viciously formal observance. Her mother, her five daughters and two servants are played by a set of arrestingly watchable actresses, from Rosalind Eleazar to Bryony Hannah.
As often with Frecknall’s productions, it’s slightly expressionistic. Merle Hensen’s set resembles a cutaway cell-block, there’s a discordant soundscape from Isobel Waller-Bridge and the action morphs into dance at some pivotal moments of high emotion. It’s fantastically detailed and richly textured, often lacerating, sometimes surprisingly funny. With this, her extraordinary Streetcar Named Desire, and her roaringly successful Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, we can safely say this director is having A Moment.
