Homestead is a powerful drama that grips you instantly and doesn’t let go. Based on the famous classic The House of Bernarda Alba by Frederico Garcia Lorca and backed by his Estate, Homestead already comes packed with kudos and status. Steven Dykes’ adaptation has transposed the original Spain to rural Texas in 1956, which works incredibly well: it enables Hispanic influences which echo the original, and adds a religious Deep South to the 1950s claustrophobic element which scores through the piece likes words in a stick of rock, working beautifully with the flavour of the original.
a production where everything works to the highest imaginable standard
From the outset, the entrance of the women all in black, except for the two servants in grey plus aprons, deferentially standing at the back, it’s apparent after only five minutes who they all are. The singing with religious fervour is at once beautiful, mesmerising and haunting: a perfect opening to the play, setting the tone instantly. This matriarch has just buried her husband, she and her five daughters are praising God, and sadness is not allowed as it would be seen as a challenge to His plan. There is nothing weak or emotional in this tableau, each daughter and each servant making her personality apparent in the way they move, facially, and the way they worship. And the focal point of this whole family is Lilian Beckman: the mother, played by Deborah Kearne, who is a tour de force in this role, a restrained ferociousness coming off her in waves. Her strength of character is a cornerstone force and the play builds and builds until others either melt around her or break themselves on her granite.
There are so many fascinating things at play here: Lilian Beckman is determined not to be seen as weak following the death of the man of the house, and is going to run a tighter household, and wants her daughters all separated away from the evils of the town, particularly men, or at least the ineligible ones. Contrast that with the house full of young women who are desperate for life and love and in the heat of the summer they are boiling past a simmer; and you have characters on a collision course where you almost can’t bear the tension but are so gripped you can’t look away. There are some challenging scenes in the play, in the way the mother gains control of her daughters: one particularly where each of them have totally different reactions to a shocking scene, showing exactly how Mrs Beckman has managed to play one off against the other. Yet the tighter she squeezes, the more some of them try to wriggle free from her grasp: something she is unaware of, even when servant Birdie warns her.
The tableau pictures they create between them are both beautiful and eerie, the use of the table is genius, and watching someone breathe in one scene responding to the soundscape has never been so captivating. The daughters secretly listen to the radio, to “honky-tonk” they are not allowed to hear, then accidentally tune into a station playing Elvis: a brilliant addition, as it is so well documented about his effect on young women particularly, in the age which discovered teenagers, in a house where no emotions and no bodily awareness is allowed. A house which only shows love through love for the Lord: where the mother only touches them when they are on their knees in response to praying or asking for her blessing or forgiveness. In deeply religious households it’s easy to imagine this is the way it was for decades, and possibly still is in some places, which gives the play a timeless quality.
This is a production where everything works to the highest imaginable standard: the direction by Conor Baum is sublime. There is a sweet flavour of Tennessee Williams in this play, and a welcome reminiscence of the Clint Eastwood film The Beguiled. It’s also rare and very welcome to see such an incredibly strong play with all women characters: and each of them played flawlessly by a universally astonishing cast, with Deborah Kearne at the helm in a perfect portrayal of toxicity disguised as care. It’s simply brilliant, faultless and timeless.
