In "The House of Bernarda Alba", a tyrannical matriarch rules over her house and five daughters, cruelly crushing their hopes and needs. The other plays here also portray female characters whose desires are tragically and violently frustrated: a woman"s longing for a child in "Yerma", and a bride"s yearning for her lover in "Blood Wedding". All appeal for freedom and sexual and social equality, and are also passionate defences of the imagination: in Christopher Maurer"s words, "poetic drama unsurpassed by any writer of our time".