The Tony Award-winning actress and Hollywood Walk of Fame star makes a powerful dramatic transformation in TGA’s highly anticipated Philippine staging of Ang Tahanan ni Bernard Alba.
Last seen with TGA as The Witch in the sold-out run of Into the Woods, this season, Lea Salonga steps into one of theater’s most complex and commanding roles as she inhabits the play’s titular character.
Following an extraordinary career that has taken her from Manila to Broadway and beyond, the multiple award-winning actress, singer, and producer now turns her formidable dramatic talents toward this headstrong matriarch, a woman whose determination to protect her family ultimately becomes the very force that threatens to destroy it. This poetic drama by Federico García Lorca, one of the 20th century’s greatest dramatists, permeates this tragic masterpiece of matriarchal despotism and is adapted by celebrated director-playwright Chay Yew and translated into Filipino by Guelan Valera Luarca.
After the death of her second husband, Bernarda declares eight years of mourning and imposes absolute obedience upon her five daughters. Behind the closed doors of the Alba household, silence, discipline, tradition, and appearances reign supreme. But beneath the carefully maintained order, her daughters’ desires, jealousies, frustrations, and dreams refuse to remain contained. When the arrival of a potential suitor disturbs the household’s fragile equilibrium, tensions begin to mount, forcing each woman to confront what she wants and what she is willing to sacrifice to have it.
At the center of it all stands Bernarda: fiercely protective, uncompromising, and obsessed with respectability. She is both mother and ruler, protector and oppressor, determined to hold her family together even as her methods transform their home into a prison.
For Salonga, whose career has been defined by some of musical theater’s most demanding roles, Bernarda marks a striking new chapter. Best known internationally for her Tony Award-winning performance in Miss Saigon, Salonga has also received the Olivier, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World Awards. She became the first Asian actress to play Eponine on Broadway in Les Misérables and later returned to the musical as Fantine in its 2006 revival. Her Broadway credits also include Once on This Island, Allegiance, Flower Drum Song, Here Lies Love, and Sondheim’s Old Friends. On TV, she was last seen in Pretty Little Liars and The Cleaning Lady. She is a bona fide Disney legend having lent her singing voice to Princess Jasmine in Aladdin and Fa Mulan in Mulan and Mulan II. Most recently, Salonga voiced the dreaded manananggal in the DreamWorks animation Forgotten Island.
Yet Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba presents audiences with a Lea Salonga they have never seen before.
Salonga says, “To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t encountered this play before, which may work in my favor as I have no preconceived notions or strong opinions. After reading both Chay’s English translation and then Guelan’s translation into Pilipino, despite the literal terror I feel in my soul, this is an absolutely important work to tackle. It fits our culture and is timely given the state of current events in the world.”
The “terror” Salonga speaks of emanates from two fronts: First, the striking difference in her parenting style compared to that of Bernarda’s, and second, because the play will be entirely in Filipino.
The iconic performer shares, “Bernarda is a mother who rules the roost and raises her
children not with love but fear. This kind of parenting still exists, whether for cultural or familial reasons, and getting under the skin of such a mother may give me some empathy for her as well as plenty of sympathy for her children. Figuring out what her backstory is will be fascinating, and what her motivations are for ruling her home with an iron fist. Her rule is law for every person living under her roof, and that house is not a happy place. How does anyone reach that point? It’s definitely going to be, dare I say, fun playing detective and piecing all that out.”
She continues, “To borrow a line from Into the Woods, I’m ‘excited and scared’. My Tagalog, strangely enough, tends to lean towards the ‘matatas’ side. I once
wrote a post on Threads in Pilipino from start to finish, trying not to incorporate either English or Spanish. A few folks might’ve been surprised. As for preparations, I’ve enlisted Guelan’s help in navigating the script, and am ready to ask questions about why he chose certain words over others in his translation. His use of the language isn’t just beautiful but adds so many layers of subtext and meaning.
With Lea Salonga at its center, Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba promises not merely a performance, but a confrontation and examination of our own Filipino family dynamics and values.
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