La Casa De Bernarda Alba

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Creative Writing: Dialogue with a Male Character”

In this activity, students will write the creative dialogue of one of the male characters discussed in the play.

While the content of the play focuses on the systematic oppression and Sexual Repression of women, Lorca’s play gives them a unique agency in that they are the only characters to have dialogue within the play. In this vein, the male characters’ words, which are central to the plot, are not directly heard by the audience. For this Activity, you will create a scene to fit within the scope of the play in which one of the female characters interacts with one of the male characters referenced. This conversation could occur as a prologue, during the play, or an epilogue, and should consider how Lorca’s themes of Sexual Repression, Cycles of Oppression, and Cycles of Violence fit within the added scene. Use the following questions to guide your writing:

• Which of the male characters have you selected? How is this person related to the Bernarda women?
• Why does this character want to have a conversation with the female character?
• When and where does this conversation take place? Is it secret or not?
• What do the characters discuss?
• What is the outcome of the conversation? How does the scene fit within the scope of the play as a whole?