The Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen

At the Kingston Rose

As regular readers of these reviews will know, I am a great fan of Ibsen, a writer who seems to me to be extraordinarily ahead of his time. If it was revealed that all Ibsen plays were a hoax, and were in fact written in the 1950s, I would not be very surprised. His themes are modern, his plays psychologically fluent, even though psychology had not been invented, and as a dramatist he is constantly challenging the boundaries of his time. 

It is many years since I last saw The Dolls House, so I had few expectations; I was largely excited to be going to Kingston Rose to see Ibsen directed by Peter Hall. Despite the fact that Ibsen is the easiest of writers to 'modernise', Hall set his version in solid historical reality. A sparse Nordic middle class house, period costume and props. Nora, stunningly portrayed by Catherine McCormack, twitters nervously around the house as she prepares for Christmas. Her character is instantly set up by her slightly stern and stuffy husband Torvald - Nora is a bit of a spendthrift, but so pretty and overtly empty headed, who could not forgive her? (or my little squirrel or skylark, as he continually calls her) Once that is established, Ibsen debunks us. Nora has a secret - she raised the money to take them away on a trip to the warm south, a trip her husband desperately needed for his health - by borrowing a large amount of money. Her constantly running out of money is not spend-thriftness, but because she is paying it back to Nils Krogstad, a disgraced local lawyer. Torvald hates debt and lies, which he considers morally degenerating. Their friend, Dr Rank, immaculatedly crafted by Christopher Ravenscroft,  is considered to have a generative illness caused by the loose morals of his mother. So Nora is treading a very tight line indeed. As Christmas weekend passes, her room for manoeuvre runs out and after allowing her physicality to explode with the dancing of the Tarantella, she has no option but to confront her husband - and finally he too has to confront the truth that his wife is not a fantasy figure.

It is a long play, and all the better for that. We don't see Nora and Torvald's relationship, but rather a play within a play as Nora tries to pretend to be her normal loving wifely self. The space on stage seem to constrict until the claustrophobia is painful. And when Nora stops acting and becomes herself, it is a stunning realisation. Ibsen's most overtly feminist play seems as fresh and real as the first time I saw it, a stunning riposte to the world of misogyny.

The entire cast is superb, with Susie Trayling's Mrs Linde almost as exceptional as McCormack's Nora.  The set worked superbly in the open stage of the Rose, with clever lighting opening the house as and when needed. The translation was modern but not overly knowing. All in all a splendid production form Peter Hall's Bath Theatre Company and a great start to the new season at Kingston Rose.

www.rosetheatrekingston.org

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