In October 2018, as the only member of the props crew, I researched the lamb for House of Bernarda Alba, which is used in Act Three when Maria Josefa holds the lamb as if holding a child. The director wanted the toy lamb to be creepy and to fit into Maria Josefa’s arms, so it needed to be the size of a baby. I looked for examples of 1930’s toys, as well as searching 19th century toys, and discovered most lamb toys tended to be wood with some fur on them. The toys tended to have wheels on the bottom of the feet and included glass eyes. Using this knowledge, I began forming an outline of the initial shape of the lamb and the type of faces that would bring out the disturbing feel before I cut my lamb’s body shape out from the wood. I got fur that was pure white, which I had an artist darken for me. The artist also painted the lamb’s body brownish white as I requested; I wanted to have the lamb seem dirty and used. Taking some images from my research, I then drew on the lamb’s face and had the artist paint it. Taking the fur, I then layered it over the body, cutting pieces and layering them over each other before nailing the pieces on the body. I took the extra pieces on the back to scrunch up and nail in place in order to forming the lamb’s tail. To create the ears, I took extra pieces of fur and cut those out before nailing them on the head. The lamb during the show worked well with Maria Josefa as her elderly personality is childlike, and using the toy lamb made of wood brought out more this nature. The lamb gave the scene playful feel while at the same time helping to increase the disturbing elements of an elderly character usually locked away. The creepy elements of the lamb are used to draw the audience’s attention to a character holds and sings to this toy as if it were her child. To see a photo of the lamb on stage, please copy and paste this link into a browser: https://tinyurl.com/yccrbzd4

Continuing my research, I was tasked with looking into dining place settings. I discovered that 19th century dinnerware plates in Spain would be a white porcelain with some detail, unless one was more wealthy, for then the plates would have more extravagant detail. Chairs would have been wooden with leather seating. Taking this knowledge I looked in storage and found similar props for use for the chairs and plates during the dining scene in Act Three of the play. To see a photo of the dining table and chairs I procured, please copy and paste this link into a browser: https://tinyurl.com/yapc5qlu