By Ilana Jael
After spending the first half of my October haunted by review deadlines following an impromptu double feature of Carrie and Hedda Gabler, maybe I shouldn’t have been terribly surprised to see that my next theatrical encounter would likely center yet another unhinged antiheroine.
Though Alejandro Rodriguez’s Alba would technically be the world premiere of a new play, it would also be a loose adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s La Casa De Bernarda Alba, a story I was just familiar enough with to be wary of its tortured women and tragic end.
Fortunately, Rodriguez’s Alba is also partially based on the Cuban playwright’s own family history, which immediately made the dramatic proceedings a whole lot livelier. As in García Lorca’s Casa, the title character of Rodriguez’s Alba is the strict matriarch of her all-female household, which she rules with an iron fist in the hopes of “protecting” her daughters’ futures. And thanks to Palm Beach Dramaworks’ exemplary production values, the OG title character of the Casa almost has enough personality to feel a part of the family.
Impossibly, Tanya Orellana’s scenic design creates onstage a house that feels like a real home, architecturally distinct enough to suggest a mood and era and just “off” enough in terms of color palette to heighten the eerie energy. Brian O’Keefe’s dependably strong costume design further fleshed out this world while helping establish character, and also plays a part in some memorable comedic bits.
But by transposing the time and place of the story from 1930s Spain to 2001 Miami and modernizing the rest of the plot, Rodriguez quickly proves to be creating something wholly original as opposed to retreading old ground. As the life-or-death stakes of the family’s secrets slowly reveal themselves, Rodriguez reels us in right away and then keeps us hooked with a steady stream of character-driven humor and familiar sitcom-y gags.
Though there may have been a few Spanish asides I couldn’t understand or other references didn’t quite “get” as much as audience members who shared a background with the Cuban characters seemed to, Rodriguez excels in building a culturally specific world informed by his characters’ shared heritage — which, of course, also happens to be his own.
Even if I hadn’t gone in knowing this bit of back story, I may have guessed it from the unmistakable “memory play” vibes of the material and the way Rodriguez chose to structure it. Most noticeably, he includes a narrator character called Poet, a grandson of Alba’s who frames the play as his attempt to come to terms with her complex legacy. Compared to the rest of the cast, Poet lives in a different emotional time zone, and Robert Aguilar’s lighting design is especially useful in setting him visually apart.
Though Poet’s interludes were evocative and beautifully written, I was so invested in the vivacious women of Alba and their stories that I initially wondered if this comparatively boring male interloper was even dramatically necessary. But especially as portrayed by the all-star ensemble director KT Sanchez has assembled, these female characters are a breath of fresh air in how real and modern they feel. Unlike many literary women I can think of, Rodriguez’s characters are allowed to behave in ways that are ugly, self-defeating, or contradictory and still emerge as worthy of love.
As crafted by Rodriguez, Alba is by far the play’s most dramatically compelling character — and its least likable one. She’s brought to life in Maggie Bofill’s standout performance, which is among the most formidable I’ve seen this season in its embodied ferocity.
Ultimately, Alba’s three daughters emerge as far more sympathetic characters, played by a veritable dream team of Diana Garle (Adela), Dayana Morales (Angie), and Gianna DiGregorio Rivera (Amelia). Morales is sweet and understated as the resigned Angie, DiGregorio is appropriately awkward and angry as Amelia, and Garle combines impeccable comic timing and fiery passion in the pivotal role of Adela.
Completing the ensemble are Barbara Bonilla, who exudes effortless charm as Alba’s live-in bosom buddy Yolanda, Mary Lou Simo, who steals the show with her intensity during short appearances as Alba’s Alzheimer’s-stricken mother Josefina, and Monica Quintero, who as Josefina’s nurse Gladys is probably the closest thing to a normal person we can find in the whole mess.
Last but not least, there’s Matthew Ferro, whose seemingly peripheral role as the narrating Poet shifts at the eleventh hour into an emotionally pivotal one that he handles excellently. It’s also here that Rodriguez’s Alba powerfully diverges from the template I expected him to follow based on García Lorca, which I’d only experienced secondhand as refracted through a theatrical adaptation that seems to have followed the original’s plot more closely. In terms of background knowledge, it wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to be able to trace the trajectory of certain key characters well enough to brace myself for their impending ends.
Without fully spoiling anything, that “end” wasn’t at all the one I expected, and the shift caught me so off guard that before I knew it, I was sobbing with an intensity that I can’t really explain. I wasn’t the only one choked up by the visceral power of the moment, so I can’t dismiss my reaction entirely as an individual aberration. But, in the moment, this cathartic move felt genuinely revelatory and redemptive, perhaps because it is emblematic of the idea that love can be a strong enough force to reshape tragic trajectories.
To finally circle back around to Alba as the play that turned my Carrie/Hedda double header from hell into a deranged little triple feature: If we focus on Adela as opposed to Alba as our unhinged antiheroine, suddenly all three stories are telling variations of the same story about how explosive a woman denied autonomy can become.
But I don’t think that particular substory is the one that motivated Rodriguez to write Alba, which, thanks to its memory play trappings, is technically also a ghost story. No, not one in which the spirits of the dead literally come back to haunt the living, but one in which the living can discover, through art and through memory, a way to commune with their histories nonetheless.
In the end, it definitely isn’t every day in Palm Beach County — or, actually, anywhere — that local theatergoers can enjoy a new play that’s as funny and irreverent as it is inventive, human, and heartbreaking. You only have until October 25 to catch what I could call Alejandro Rodriguez’s reverse haunting of the historical canon — and I’d say that all you should really be afraid of is missing your chance to check it out.
If you go
Tickets for all performances are $97. Student tickets are available for $15 with a valid K-12 or university/college ID, and anyone under 40 pays $40 (no additional fees) with a photo ID. Tickets for educators and active military are half price with proper ID (other restrictions apply). Group rates are also available. Tickets can be purchased through the box office, in person or by phone (561-514-4042, ext. 2), and online 24 hours a day at palmbeachdramaworks.org.
Evening performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm. Matinee performances are Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2 pm. Post-performance discussions follow Wednesday and Thursday matinees. The Don and Ann Brown Theatre is located in the heart of downtown West Palm Beach, at 201 Clematis St.