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Homestead
Has the National re-located to Covent Garden ? Homestead , Steven Dykes' retelling of The House of Bernarda Alba is the kind of grand, cathartic epic more usually seen gracing the stage of the Olivier or the Lyttleton than that of a fringe theatre about to close for lack of funding. I hope one of Nicholas Hytner's team does make the trip down to the Theatre Museum at some point before 15th October, because Dykes' own production of Homestead is ripe for a no-expenses-spared reincarnation in one of the loftier spaces on the South Bank.

Which is not to say that there is anything much missing from the production in its current incarnation. Dykes' all-female cast, led by Hollie Garrett's stoical matriarch Lillian Beckman, lead the audience on an epic journey which traces the lives of a mother and her five young daughters living in the deep South following the death of their ranch-owner husband and father. Lillian Beckman has no son to take her husband's place, although Eldridge Beckman did, unknown to his grieving family, father an illegitimate son by the family maid, Clarice. A major theme of the play is that of women surrounded by the demands and temptations of good-for-nothing males, from their dead husband/father, to the undisclosed heir to the ranch and the local traders who see a lone female ranch-owner and smell vulnerability. Ultimately, tragedy will come in the handsome form of Agnes' fiancé, who proposes for money and then falls prey to the more obvious charms of her sister, Adele, while also managing to break the heart of Lillian's fourth child, Mara Lee.

The truthful line of Dykes' direction and the cast's strong ensemble work, mirroring the dynamic of a family pulling together in grief and fear, are particularly impressive. Cast and director have taken great care with not only the individual characterisation of each role, but with the highly credible way in which each character has carved out her niche in the family. The staging and sound design are strikingly naturalistic and effective, although to be brutally honest, some of the ensemble a capella pieces, while easy on the ear, could have gained effect by losing a few verses. That, perhaps, is the play's only fault - while its two and a half hours including interval echo the epic vastness of the land and the long history of its inhabitants, and the final scene is nonetheless worth the wait, it could comfortably lose half an hour in singing and marginally unnecessary scenes used to show the inter-relationship of each and every character. Strip those away, however, and this could be a truly great play.

Homestead is that rare thing, a play based on another play which has a new, fresh, legitimate voice of its own. Shady Dolls' impressive production raises a significant question for London theatre and those responsible for its funding and development - why is a theatre producing such high quality new writing about to close, while the West End continues to churn out luke warm tourist-pleasers which add so little to the cultural life of the nation?
- Louise Hill, The British Theatre Guide, October 2006

Homestead
Steven Dykes' interpretation of Lorca's La casa de Bernada Alba is a triumph. The writer does not miss a beat in transposing the action from thirties rural Spain to the ‘pan-handle plains of 1950s Texas'. The play's themes of conservatism and oppression cry out for such a pressure cooker of simmering tensions and they are given plenty of oxygen here.
The ritual of Roman Catholicism becomes the doctrine of the Primitive Baptist Church as the all-female household mourns the loss of its patriarch behind closed doors. All in black, the cane-wielding widow Lillian Beckman (Hollie Garrett) rules the roost with a cold Puritanism, preaching the old order of things.
Garrett stamps her mark on this play, bringing an oppressiveness every time she appears, snuffing out any moments of abandon enjoyed by her daughters. She is totally believable and shares this quality with rest of the cast. It must be said that all are superb and individually deliver the careful degrees of shading necessary to make this ensemble piece shine.
Shady Dolls graduated from the American Theatre Arts course at Rose Bruford and Dykes wrote this specifically for them. The course lays down principles in its performances of in some way reflecting or interpreting an American social and/or political context. It is perhaps this common manifesto that lends the whole enterprise an added air of authority and conviction.
But it would be certain to fall flat without the quality of writing and execution on display here. The fidelity to idioms of Texan speech is impressive and the singing too hits the mark. I can't really find anything to fault, except perhaps the length of the run - too short. This play deserves to be seen. I predict great things to come from this lot.
- David Simmons, The Stage, October 2006

The Diamond in the Rough
Here's a diamond in the rough. In the soulless, subterranean studio of the Theatre Museum Stephen Dykes's muscular, atmospheric reworking of Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba beautifully rebottles the original's drama of unnatural confinement for an evening that rivals the starrier houses roundabout.
Dykes relocates Lorca in the American Deep South. Lilian Beckman is the new stick-wielding matriarch who keeps her five daughters locked away, here out of perverted Protestant principle rather than Iberian superstition. Hollie Garrett plays her with fearsome steel.
Under her sway, the five young actresses playing the daughters combine in an ensemble performance quietly buzzing with the friction of female rivalry. As Agnes preens herself for her wedding to the never-seen beautiful boy Hernandez, Polly Henson's Adele moons with the knowing grace of a girl whose thoughts are of night-time.
The others circle fascinated, intuiting the disastrous truth even as they hope to avoid it.
The production simmers better than it boils. The actresses' naivete and some hackneyed direction rear their heads when the emotion is really let rip. The Southern accent, too, is not dealt with uniformly well.
Some notable imperfections then, but only these prevent Homestead from being a fully polished Fringe gem.
- Kieron Quirke, The Evening Standard, October 2006

Homestead
Steven Dykes's powerful new play is inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba.
Homestead is set in the Baptist US Deep South in the 1950s, rather than the Catholic Spain of Lorca's final masterpiece.
After the death of her husband, Lillian Beckman is intent on controlling her five daughters' future and her land.
But the daughters yearn for personal and sexual freedom, especially the youngest, Adele.
The arrival of an Elvis Presley song on the radio, which momentarily releases their energy, and a handsome suitor for the eldest daughter Agnes, heralds tragedy.
A brilliant all-female cast put in wonderful performances - and the dramatic, atmospheric set fits the story perfectly.
-Matthew Cookson, The Socialist Worker, October 2006