A Doll's House

Synopsis

First performed in Copenhagen in 1879. Christmas Eve. Excitement and love filled the Helmer's apartment. Nora is her husband's cherished 'songbird' and the romance of their marriage has been played out over the years. But beneath the carefree surface of their lives, the secret of how Nora saved her husband's life begins to emerge. Tension increases as the characters react against one another and this taut and gripping drama ends as Nora demands her right to individual freedom. One of the great landmark plays of the nineteenth century.

Our Review:

20 May 2009

Messing about with Ibsen has become a bit of a trend lately, and playwright Zinnie Harris follows a misfired update (not hers) of Hedda Gabler at the Gate with a not totally convincing re-write of A Doll's House as an Edwardian political sob story with new furnishings and fittings.

In Ibsen, the small-town worlds of finance and the law are crucially intertwined, so that Nora’s forged signature to secure repayments on her husband Torvald’s medical bills assumes a nightmare significance; the barrister Krogstad knows she won’t want to lose face in the locality.

Harris over-complicates the story by giving it a national political edge and having Thomas (ie, Torvald) and Nora Vaughan move into Neil Kelman’s (ie, Krogstad’s) former house, a great booming barn in Anthony Ward’s design, with rows of empty curved shelves and piles of packing cases. A huge Christmas tree stands forlornly in ...

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Latest User Review

addicted to theatre - 6 July 2009:

Brilliant acting from all concerned, though I thought Gillian Anderson was particularly affecting. I'm usually very wary of film and TV actors treading the boards but she gave one of the performances of the year. Highly recommended....

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