The House of Bernarda Alba: Act I, Scene 1
Setting
A white room inside the house of Bernarda Alba. Thick walls. Arched gates with jute curtains trimmed with tassels and ruffles. Bulrush chairs. Tables with improbable landscapes depicting nymphs and rulers of legend. It is summer. A great, shady silence stretches across the scene. When the curtain rises, the stage is empty. You hear bells chiming.
Characters
Maid
La Poncia
Bernarda
Maria Josefa (Bernarda’s mother)
Angustias (Bernarda’s eldest daughter)
Magdalena (Bernarda’s daughter)
Amelia (Bernarda’s daughter)
Martirio (Bernarda’s daughter)
Adela (Bernarda’s youngest daughter)
Women in Mourning
Beggar Woman
Girl
Scene
(The Maid exits.)
Maid: I already have those bells double sandwiched between the temples.
La Poncia: (Entering, eating sausage and bread) They’ve been going gori-gori for more than two hours. Priests of all sorts have been here. The church was beautiful. In the first response, Magdalena fainted.
Maid: It’s best if she’s left alone.
La Poncia: She was the only one who loved her father. Ouch! Thank God we’re alone for a bit! I came to eat.
Bernarda: (From offstage) If you see…!
La Poncia: I’m going to eat now, whether she likes it or not! We’re all going to die hungry! Bossy! Domineering! But it bothers me! We’ve opened the sausage’s belly.
Maria Josefa: (Sadly, anxiously) Why don’t you give me some for my child, Poncia?
La Poncia: Come and take a handful of chickpeas too. Today, we won’t be charged!
Voice: (From inside) Bernarda!
La Poncia: The old woman. Is she locked up?
Maid: With a double lock.
La Poncia: But did you also put the bar across? You have fingers like five picks.
Voice: Bernarda!
La Poncia: (To the voice) She’s coming! (To the Maid) Clean everything well. If Bernarda sees a speck of dust, she’ll pull out the few hairs I have left.
Maid: What a woman!
La Poncia: A tyrant to everyone around her. She can sit on your heart and watch you die for a year without that cold smile she carries on her damn face ever leaving. Clean, clean this glaze!
Maid: My hands are bleeding from scrubbing everything.
La Poncia: She, the neatest, she, the most decent, she, the most high-and-mighty. May her poor husband rest in peace.
(The bells stop.)
Maid: Did all the relatives come?
La Poncia: Her relatives. The people she hates. They came to see him dead, and you made the sign of the cross.
Maria Josefa: Are there enough chairs?
La Poncia: More than enough. They can sit on the floor. Since her father died, Bernarda hasn’t let anyone under this roof. She doesn’t want to see them in her domain. Damn her!
Maid: She’s always treated you well.
La Poncia: Thirty years washing her sheets, thirty years eating her leftovers; sleepless nights when she coughed; days spent looking through the crack in the wall to spy on the neighbors and bring her the gossip; a life without secrets between us, and yet, damn her! May a nail pierce her eyes!
Maid: Woman!
La Poncia: But I’m a good bitch. I bark when I’m told and bite the heels of those who beg when it suits me. My children work on their land and are now both married, but one day I’ll get my fill.
Maid: And that day…?
La Poncia: That day I’ll lock myself up with her in a room and I’ll spit in her face for a whole year. “Bernarda, for this, for that, for the other,” until she’s like a lizard pounded by children, which is what she is and all her family. Of course, I don’t envy her life. Five women left, five ugly girls. Except for Angustias, the eldest, who is the daughter of her first husband and has money, the others have a lot of lace, many embroidered linen shirts, but only bread and grapes for inheritance.
Maid: I pity them!
La Poncia: We have our hands and a hole in the ground, that’s the truth.
Maid: That’s the only land left to those of us who have nothing.
La Poncia: (Looking in the cupboard) This glass has some speckles.
Maid: Neither soap nor scrubbing can remove them.
(The bells ring.)
La Poncia: The last response. I’m going to hear it. I really like the way the priest sings. In the “Our Father,” his voice rose, rose, rose like a pitcher slowly filling with water. It’s true that at the end he gave a rooster’s crow, but it was delightful! Nobody sings like the old sexton, Tronchapinos, anymore. He sang at the Mass for my mother, who is in glory. The walls echoed, and when he said “Amen,” it was as if a wolf had entered the church. (Imitating) Amee! (She starts coughing.)
Maid: You’re going to cough up your lungs.
La Poncia: Another thing I’ll cough up is dust! (She exits laughing.)
(The Maid cleans. The bells ring.)
Maria Josefa: (Singing) Tin, tin, so. Tin, tin, so. God has forgiven!
Beggar Woman: (With a girl) Praise God!
Maid: Tin, tin, so. May we live many years. Tin, tin, so.
Beggar Woman: (Loudly, with some irritation) Praise God!
Maria Josefa: (Annoyed) Forever!
Beggar Woman: I’ve come for the leftovers.
(The bells stop.)
Maria Josefa: At the door that leads outside. The leftovers are for me today.
Beggar Woman: Woman, may you be struck down! My daughter and I are alone!
Maid: There are also dogs and they live alone.
Beggar Woman: I always give them some.
Maid: Get out of here. Who told you to come in? You haven’t left the doorstep since I arrived. (They leave. She cleans.) Oil-varnished floors, cupboards, pedestals, steel beds, to swallow us up! We live in dirt huts with a plate and a spoon. Hopefully, one day, everything will change, or someone will speak up! (The bell rings again) Yes, yes, come and cry! Come with your silk-edged boxes and your gold towels to carry him away! I’ll be the one to bury you all! Knotted up, Antonio Maria Benavides, stiff in your tweed suit and your polished boots. Knotted up! They won’t lift your petticoats in your backyard! (In the background, two by two, women in black begin to enter, wearing large scarves, skirts, and black fans. They enter slowly, filling the stage.) (Breaking down, screaming) Oh, Antonio Maria Benavides, you will no longer see these walls, nor will you eat bread in this house! I was the one you wanted among those who served you. (Pulling her hair) And I live to see you go? What am I to live for?
(The two hundred women finish entering, and Bernarda appears with her five daughters.)
Bernarda: (To the Maid) Silence!
Maid: (Crying) Bernarda!
Bernarda: Less shouting and more work. You should have made sure this house was cleaner to receive the mourners. Go. This is not your place. (The Maid exits sobbing.) The poor are like animals. It seems as if they were made of other substances.
Woman 1: The poor also feel their pain.
Bernarda: But forget before a dish of chickpeas.
Girl 1: (With shyness) Food is necessary for life.
Bernarda: At your age do not talk in front of the elderly.
Woman 1: Girl, shut up.
Bernarda: I have not let anyone give me lessons. Sit. (They sit. Pause)
(Strong) Magdalena, do not cry. If you want to mourn you get under the bed. Do you
Have you heard?
Woman 2: (A Bernarda) Have you begun work on the era?
Bernarda: Yesterday.