Theatre Group Asia (TGA) brings internationally acclaimed director, playwright, and arts leader Chay Yew to the Philippines for his Philippine directorial debut with Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba, his adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s classic drama translated into Filipino by Guelan Varela Luarca.
With a career spanning more than three decades, Yew has directed productions at some of the United States’ leading theater institutions, including The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Goodman Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and American Conservatory Theater. His directing credits include Cambodian Rock Band, Mojada, Oedipus el Rey, Sweatshop Overlord, The Light in the Piazza, and The House of Bernarda Alba. His work also extends to opera, and he is a recipient of the OBIE, DramaLogue, and Craig Noel Awards for Direction.
From 2011 to 2020, Yew served as Artistic Director of Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, where he championed new works and stories reflecting the city’s diverse communities. His contributions to theater have also earned him the 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award, while the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society honored him that same year as one of 65 directors who have “inspired SDC members and transformed the American Theatre.”
For Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba, Yew returns to material he first staged more than 25 years ago with the National Asian American Theatre Company in New York. When Yew first approached The House of Bernarda Alba, he found himself drawn to the more poetic qualities of Lorca’s Blood Wedding and Yerma.
Yew shares, “I combined the two, trying to find its own lyricism within past Lorca plays, including the story that Lorca is telling, and integrated it into this production. And in this version, I also decided to deepen and find new complexities of all the women in the play.”
For his Philippine directorial debut, Yew says the work carries particular resonance for Filipino audiences. His earlier staging involved several Filipino artists who recognized familiar cultural dynamics within Lorca’s story. “When we first did the play, there were a lot of Filipinos involved, and they all kept saying that it was the most Filipino experience. The more I did it, the more I realized it had to come to the Philippines,” Yew continues. The collaboration with TGA also brings the story full circle. The collaboration also carries a deeply personal resonance, as one of TGA’s co-founders, Bobby Garcia, was once a student intern under Yew during the early years of Yew’s career in New York.
For the Philippine production, Yew was also deliberate about presenting his adaptation in Filipino. That decision reunites him with playwright and translator Guelan Varela Luarca, whom he first met while Luarca was a graduate student at Hunter College and later collaborated on an adaptation of The Oresteia. He explains, “When the opportunity came with Bernarda Alba, I didn’t want to do it in English. I told Clint I wanted to give this play a Filipino spirit. It’s a play they should hold on very dear to…the only person who I knew who has the capacity of its poetry and politics is Guelan.”
On working with the iconic Lea Salonga portraying the play’s titular character, Yew shares, “It’ll be huge challenge for her because I think this role is very antithetical to what she has done. Yet, I do recognize the fortitude, the strength, and the dynamic quality that she has as an actor to play the role. I recognize in Lea those qualities. She is a mother. She is a force of nature. And the question right now is, how far can we explore Bernarda with a wonderful actor like Lea?”
Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba is about a strict matriarch and her five daughters. After the death of her second husband, Bernarda imposes eight years of mourning on her daughters and demands absolute obedience within the household. But as tensions build behind closed doors, her daughters’ frustrations, desires, and rivalries begin to challenge the order she has tried to maintain.
Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba will be staged in February 2027 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater. Tickets will be available exclusively through TicketWorld, beginning with a pre-sale for BPI cardholders from October 19 to 21, followed by an exclusive pre-sale for TGA subscribers on October 22 from 10 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Public ticket sales begin on October 23 at 10 a.m.
Ang Tahanan ni Bernada Alba is presented by Ayala Land and Theatre Group Asia and is the 2nd offering of its 2026-2027 Season of Power. BPI and Philippine Airlines provide additional support.
For more information, visit TGA’s website www.theatregroupasia.com, Instagram @theatregroupasia, or Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/theatregroupasia.
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