Description: Lorca's tragic tale of the destruction of Bernarda Alba's family following the death of her husband. This Student Edition includes a commentary, chronology, notes and bibliography.
Brief description: 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.
Review Quotes:
"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