Lorca described the play in its subtitle as a Drama of Women in the Villages of Spain. The House of Bernarda Alba was Lorca's last play, completed on 19 June 1936, two months before the author's murder by the Nationalists (fascists) during the Spanish Civil War. The play was first performed in 1945.
The play canters on the events of a house in Andalusia during a period of family mourning, in which Bernarda Alba (aged 60) wields total control over her five daughters Angustias (39 years old), Magdalena (30), Amelia (27), Martirio, (24), and Adela (20). The housekeeper (La Poncia) and Bernarda's elderly mother (Maria Josefa) also live there.
The deliberate exclusion of any male character from the action helps build up the high level of dramatic gender tension that is present throughout the play. The play explores themes of repression, passion, and conformity, and inspects the effects of men upon women.
Different from the style of poetry drama of Blood Wedding by the playwright, this is a realism drama and has already become one of the modern classics among the world theatre literature in the west.
