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:

4 June 2012

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House concerns a moment of crisis in the marriage of Nora and Torvald Helmer. Torvald is the Victorian patriarch, affectionate but patronising; Nora plays up to him, manipulative and conventionally ‘feminine’.

In a plot twist familiar from many nineteenth-century novels, Nora has a secret. Some years previously, she fraudulently borrowed money to allow her ill husband the chance to convalesce in Italy. Now the lender attempts to blackmail her; Torvald is his new boss and is about to sack him. Once Torvald finds out about the fraud, he hysterically repudiates Nora, swearing she will never see their children again.

When the blackmailer announces that he has found love and will not carry out his threats to reveal all to the world, Torvald backs down, but his wife has heard enough. In what was in its time a shocking ending – one early actress playing Nora refused to perform it...

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Latest User Review

Jenny Shipley - 16 August 2012:

Excellent performances from all the cast very gripping and believable....

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