Helen McCrory (Rebecca West) in Rosmersholm
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Review Round-up: Page’s Rosmersholm Splits Crits

Last week (22 May 2008, previews from 15 May) saw the opening of Anthony Page’s revival of Ibsen’s 1886 classic Rosmersholm at the Almeida Theatre. Starring Helen McCrory, Paul Hilton and Malcolm Sinclair, the production is a new adaptation by Mike Poulton, who has previously adapted Ibsen’s Ghosts and Hedda Gabler. It runs until 5 July 2008.

Rosmersholm tells the story of the house of Rosmer – a stronghold of religious and political conservatism – and the great changes which take place therein. It charts the love affair between Rosmer and his housekeeper Rebecca and their struggles between freedom and the cruelty of conscience in an age of political division.

The production is designed by Hildegard Bechtler and also features Paul Moriarty, Veronica Quilligan and Peter Sullivan in the cast.

While some critics dismissed Anthony Page’s “lacklustre” production as “Ibsen by numbers”, most expressed general appreciation for this new presentation of Rosmersholm, not put off by the “Scandinavian gloom” of the play’s “three suicides, a lavish portion of sexual guilt and a generous helping of self-laceration”. Particular praise was reserved for Poulton’s “lively” translation, Bechtler’s “imposing” designs and Malcolm Sinclair’s “memorably chilling” and stage-dominating performance as the villainous Kroll.

Robert Gore-Langton in the Daily Mail – “This rare revival features the lovely Helen McCrory as the emancipated Rebecca West, a woman with a past and housekeeper to the ex-pastor Rosmer, whose wife chucked herself in the mill race and in whose death Rebecca is implicated … Any chance of happiness is kyboshed by Kroll, the reactionary bigot who tries to recruit Rosmer into stopping the moral rot in the community. Malcolm Sinclair has a field day as this starchy reviler of modern ways and he dominates the stage whenever he is on it with his hang 'em and flog 'em views … This would be a triumphant evening if it weren't for a time-wasting second interval, frequent inaudibility, and if McCrory - in a debatable blonde wig - didn't treat her towering part (the novelist Rebecca West took her name from this character) as a supporting role … But it's fascinatingly watchable all the same.”

- by Theo Bosanquet

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