Finished just two months before the author''s murder on 18 August 1936 by a gang of Franco''s supporters, The House of Bernarda Alba is now accepted as Lorca''s great masterpiece of love and loathing.Five daughters live together in a single household with a tyrannical mother. When the father of all but the eldest girl dies, a cynical marriage is advanced which will have tragic consequences for the whole family. Lorca''s fascinatingly modern play, rendered here in an English version by David Hare, speaks as powerfully as a political metaphor of oppression as it does as domestic drama. The House of Bernarda Alba premiered at the National Theatre, London, in March 2005.