LAB! puts on its first bilingual production

LAB! Theatre is pushing boundaries with its newest production. But the characters in the show are trapped.

Tonight, LAB! premieres its first bilingual production — an adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “La Casa de Bernarda Alba.”

The play, originally written in Spanish in 1936, focuses on a household of nine women who cannot leave the grounds. Tension and drama ensue after the five sisters fall in love with the same man.

With the direction of Melissa Parker, LAB! has woven Lorca’s original play with the modern English translation by Emily Mann.

“Spanish is a beautiful language, and I grew up hearing it because of my Puerto Rican mother,” Parker said.

“We didn’t know from the get-go what would be in Spanish and what would be in English.”

The two temporal settings of the play — a 1930s Spanish village and a modern-day American setting — are used to represent the bilingual aspect of the play.

Parker said most of the play is in English, but roughly 20 minutes are solely in Spanish.

In those Spanish scenes, Parker said sepia-toned lighting evokes 20th century Spain.

Duri Long, who portrays Bernarda Alba, said the sepia lighting makes the stage appear like an old photograph, polarizing the time periods.

“This combination brings perspective of both languages and cultures into one show,” she said.

Parker said almost every Spanish scene will have an English counterpart, and she tried to incorporate well-known Spanish phrases so the audience will have a general idea of what is happening throughout the play.

“I think that it’s really awesome that people can pretend to be someone else in a different language,” said Priyanka Vakil, who plays Maria Josefa.

“La Casa de Bernarda Alba” follows each of Bernarda’s five daughters during an eight-year mourning in which nobody can leave the house.

The eldest daughter becomes engaged to the handsomest man in the village, Pepe el Romano, and turmoil ensues when all of her sisters become infatuated with him.

“He is the one man who manages to destroy this whole house without ever passing through its walls,” Parker said.

Parker said she was inspired to direct this play after revisiting some of Lorca’s work last year in a Spanish literature class.

Parker said the realism of “La Casa de Bernarda Alba” stuck out to her because Lorca was a surrealist.

She said the play is more than merely a story about the handsome Pepe — who never graces the stage.

“This is a story that transcends time,” she said.

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