Love's Comedy

Synopsis

A guitar-playing young revolutionary poet struggles with the consequences of falling in love. Students, poets, politicians and pastors meet and mix in the house of Mrs Halm and her daughters, where among the teacups and the music, love and marriage, feminism, heroism and youthful ideals fight for their place in the future.

Our Review:

19 November 2012

When first published in 1862, Ibsen's early work Love's Comedy caused an eruption of moral outrage in his native Norway for its scandalous representation of the role of women in marriage. Anyone expecting heaving bosoms and exploding corsets will be disappointed, however. Although "rigid whalebone and cruel stays" are discussed, often at great length, Love's Comedy is the theatre of ideas, not of actions.

The play takes place at the home of Mrs Halm (Julia Watson), a dominant and somewhat meddling matriarch who crows over her achievement in marrying off seven daughters and nieces. Over the course of an evening house party a neat selection of relationships are held up for our scrutiny, from the brisk and functional to the new and idealistic. After a brief comedy of mistaken identity the play settles into a debate on the nature of love and marriage, and whether the two necessarily go hand in hand.

The social conventions of the time are clearly stifling...

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