It tells the story of a widow who incarcerates her 5 daughters for eight years of mourning following the demise of her not-so-beloved husband, and it’s a blistering touch upon the legacy of patriarchy, Catholicism, inflexible class constructions and suppressed want.

This is a play that burns from the within out as aridity clashes with fecundity within the remorseless Spanish warmth. Not that you simply’d comprehend it right here.

Just about all the things on this manufacturing is improper.

From the perspex dolls’ home set and the cool blue lighting to the performances, there’s by no means a way of the dangerously bottled ardour or the tyranny of the widow Bernarda’s implacable diktats.

As performed by Harriet Walter, Bernarda is a wraith of a girl who dominates her daughters but additionally appears to be dropping management from the beginning. Thus the disaster – when it comes because of male intervention – loses a lot of its warmth and fury.

In spite of some spirited performances – Isis Hainsworth because the youngest daughter Adela, Eileen Nicholas as delusional grandma Maria Josefa and Thusitha Jayasundera as Poncia, Bernarda’s housekeeper – it’s far too indifferent to stir the blood.

Adaptor Alice Birch liberally seasons the dialogue with the F phrase in a literal try to emphasize the underlying carnality.

But the often unseen determine of native stud Pepe (James McHugh) – who conducts a languid liaison with one of many daughters – has the alternative impact of what’s meant, reducing the temperature quite than elevating it.

Over-directed and underwhelming, it appears to be like like a passionate Catholic play directed by a purse-lipped Puritan.

National Theatre till January 6
Tickets: 020 3989 5455