Bernarda Alba Reviews NOW IN

BROADWAY.COM:

"What Rashad lacks as a singer she makes up for in fierce hauteur, giving the sung word "whore" the sulfurous potency of an incantation. And she delivers Bernarda's few soft moments with a riveting sensitivity, like she's drinking deep from a secret stash of sweet memory. The plum role of her not entirely trusted servant, Poncia, has suffered the most cuts in LaChiusa's streamlining, but a striking, gypsy-styled Candy Buckley stands her ground as the house provocateur, an irrepressible if largely unheeded voice from the rough-and-tumble outside world."

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"So this is what the fuss is all about. Michael John LaChiusa's Bernarda Alba is nearly all the things he intends it to be, and that a discerning audience might wish it to be, too: a serious and seamless musicalization of Federico Garcia Lorca's forbidding final 1936 masterpiece, The House of Bernarda Alba, given a seductive staging by Graciela Daniele and a passionate, definitive rendition by its all-female cast."

http://www.broadway.com/Gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=525849

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Awesome, sounds like they loved it. Can't wait to see it March 19th. Anybody who has seen it, how is Sally Murphy?

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New York Times gave it a mixed review.

"The music, though superbly orchestrated (by Michael Starobin) and played (by a finely coordinated ensemble led by Deborah Abramson), goes places that singers used to hard-sell Broadway pizazz cannot follow. The punctuating yelps; the wavering sustained notes in minor keys; the labyrinthine interior musical paths; the eruptions into antimelodic harshness — these are all more the stuff of mid-20th-century chamber operas than conventional show tunes."

"The touchingly game performers, who include musical pros like Daphne Rubin-Vega (a haunting presence as the ugly daughter) and Yolande Bavan (as Bernarda's senile mother), inevitably stumble over such challenges. (It would probably take someone with the training and vocal variety of Audra McDonald, a prime LaChiusa interpreter, to make the songs take flight.) Even the percussive stomping and clapping that often set the rhythm for the numbers come across as self-conscious, a damning quality for a score meant to be visceral."
New York Times Review: Sex and a Monster Mother Seething in Sunny Spain

Updated On: 3/6/06 at 07:57 PM

Sounds amazing! Too bad I won't be seeing it

Brantley is Mixed:

"Not that this production, directed by Graciela Daniele and starring a miscast Phylicia Rashad in the title role, exactly courses with erotic energy or the sort of luridness that demands exclamation points. On the contrary, this latest offering from the prolific Mr. LaChiusa, already represented this season by "See What I Wanna See" at the Public Theater, often feels wan and weary.
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This is not difficult to credit, given that Ms. Rashad — whose gallery of strong maternal figures ranges from "The Cosby Show" on television to her Tony-winning performance in "A Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway — looks pretty juicy herself in her widow's weeds. (Toni-Leslie James did the all-black costumes.) Generously curved and luscious-faced as she adjusts her capacious bosom or bathes her arms, she seems less her daughters' jailer than their secret competitor. And instead of conveying a dried-up martinet, Ms. Rashad brings to mind a generally jolly suburban matron in a bad mood.

The same mismatching of actress and role is evident in the portrayal of Poncia, Bernarda's earthy peasant housekeeper, by Candy Buckley, a slim, brittle woman who here vaguely suggests how Florence Henderson might look in a "Zorro" film. An even larger problem, though, is that neither of these talented actresses, and most of the younger ones who play Bernarda's daughters and servants, seem at ease with Mr. LaChiusa's brooding, flamenco-steeped score.
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Ms. Daniele's flamenco-ish choreography, too, sometimes leans toward the unintentionally comic. But her story-theater staging makes efficient use of Christopher Barreca's dramatically spartan wooden set, and she keeps the narrative clear, even when the performers double as other characters (including a randy stallion and a receptive mare).

What she does not achieve is the hypnotic aura of fatalism that would keep the audience riveted. Nor does Mr. LaChiusa's music, at least as sung here, avoid a nagging repetitiveness. This makes it all too easy to identify with Judith Blazer as the seemingly narcoleptic daughter who has a habit of nodding off as the women around her scrap and seethe.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/theater/reviews/07alba.html

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Brantley was also quoted 2 posts above you, Margo . I think we should have a link to yours, though.

I think my excerpts capture the true spirit of his review.

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Wow, I'm so excited to see this. I was mostly excited about Daphne (and just... LaChiusa in general) but now I'm really excited to see Phylicia Rashad. (Even though my father said he thought she was awful; what does he know?)

I agree with Brantley that Rashad is miscast. Actually I agree with all of his criticisms (and wrote much the same in my own review).

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Perhaps; and my previous post certainly wasn't made in the spirit of trying to see who quoted better.

On a separate note, I do hope they will make a recording of this.

Updated On: 3/6/06 at 08:19 PM

While it's technically sold out, tickets are available and being released all the time. Anyone who wants to see it just needs to check back with the box office from time to time and/or just get one of the dozen wooden seats that are sold only directly at the box office.

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I'm actually assuming I'm going to love Rashad simply because my father didn't. We couldn't have more different tastes in things. He also hated the show itself, so I'm assuming I'll adore it.

From what I've read, I can sort of see why people may think that she's miscast, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing for myself.