Lea Salonga Will Play Bernarda Alba in Manila in February 2027

Lea Salonga will play the title role in Ang Tahanan ni Bernarda Alba, a Filipino-language staging of Federico García Lorca’s last major work. Theatre Group Asia (TGA) will present it in February 2027 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater in Manila. It is TGA’s first production in full Filipino.

A house under eight years of mourning

After the death of her second husband, Bernarda Alba declares an eight-year mourning period. Her five daughters have to follow it. Silence and discipline run the house, and appearances come first. The daughters’ desires and frustrations keep surfacing anyway, and the arrival of a potential suitor pushes things over the edge.

Chay Yew adapted the play. Guelan Varela-Luarca translated it into Filipino.

Why she’s scared

Salonga had not come across the play before. She read Yew’s English version, then the Filipino translation. She says that may work in her favor, since she has no preconceived notions about it.

She says she feels “literal terror” about taking the role. She still calls it an important work to tackle, one that fits “our culture” and suits the current state of the world.

Getting inside a hard mother

Salonga describes Bernarda as a mother who raises her children on fear rather than love. She says that kind of parenting still exists, for cultural or family reasons. Playing it may give her empathy for Bernarda and sympathy for the daughters.

She plans to work out Bernarda’s backstory and what drives her to rule the house this way. She calls it playing detective and expects it to be fun.

Doing it all in Filipino

The whole play runs in Filipino. Salonga says she is “excited and scared” about that. She says her Tagalog tends to lean toward the matatas (fluent) side. She once wrote a full Threads post in Filipino, trying to avoid English and Spanish.

She has enlisted Varela-Luarca’s help with the script and is ready to ask why he chose certain words. She says his use of the language adds layers of subtext and meaning. She has also said that anyone expecting her to sing in this production should think again.

What came before

On Sept 4, Salonga became the first Filipina to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also voices the manananggal in DreamWorks’ Forgotten Island, a character she wanted to be as far from herself as possible after years as the singing voice of Disney princesses. Earlier this year she played Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables.

Salonga says people should do scary, challenging things in life, and that it feels like “little personal victories.”