Maria Delgado Archives - The Play Podcast

073 – The House of Bernarda Alba, by Federico Garcia Lorca

by Douglas Schatz | Jan 3, 2024 | Podcast Episodes

Harriet-Walter-The-House-of-Bernarda-Alba-National-Theatre-Marc-Brenner-2-scaled

Harriet Walter as Bernarda Alba
National Theatre
December 2023
Photo by Marc Brenner

073 – The House of Bernarda Alba, by Federico Garcia Lorca

The eponymous matriarch in Federico Garcia Lorca’s unsparing drama The House of Bernarda Alba is one of literature’s most compelling figures. She keeps her five daughters under close and cruel control, ostensibly protecting them from the potential violations of local men and the stain of village gossip. But Bernarda Alba’s repressive regime will provoke the very outcome she fears, an act of rebellion with tragic consequences.

The play is not only a tragic family drama, but its portrait of oppression and social conformity also reflects the dangerous political landscape in which it was written. Lorca finished the play in June 1936, two months before he was murdered during the first days of the Spanish Civil War.

As we record this episode a production of The House of Bernarda Alba in a new adaptation by Alich Birch is playing at the National Theatre in London, directed by Rebecca Frecknall. It stars Harriet Walter as the ferociously domineering matriarch, and a wonderful cast who play the daughters desperate to escape the prison of this house.

I am delighted to have the opportunity in this episode to learn more about this inescapably powerful play, and its author, from an expert on both. My guest is Professor Maria Delgado, who is Professor and Vice Principal of Research and Knowledge Exchange at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.

Maria Delgado

Professor Maria Delgado is Professor and Vice Principal of Research and Knowledge Exchange at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. She has published widely on Lorca’s theatre and afterlives, including a 2008 book, Federico García Lorca published by Routledge, as well as specific articles and chapters on Lorca and this play. She has also contributed to BBC radio programmes on Lorca, including In Our Time and Free Thinking.

Recommended Play

Maria recommended Fefu and Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornés.

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115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg

Oct 6, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.

Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.

Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.

114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Sep 22, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.

I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 24, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.

As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.