The Stage

A Doll’s House

Published Monday 14 September 2009 at 10:15 by Anne Broom

In this first in-house production, director Rebecca Manson Jones takes a decisive approach to Ibsen’s compelling drama, choosing Samuel Adamson’s version with its contemporary language to make this classic instantly accessible to modern audiences. It is cleverly and intelligently complemented by designer Janet Bird’s superb stylised monochrome set.

Stripped of all but the bare minimum, with little extraneous detail, household activities are intermittently glimpsed through surrounding gauze walls. A steeply raked hexagonal floor is echoed by an hexagonal glass ceiling and off-set upstage by rather cumbersome central folding double doors leading to a hallway. Clare Calbraith’s searing and mercurial Nora Helmer bursts into this sombre, heavily atmospheric space as the clock’s insistent ticking presages the inevitable consequences, forwarding the action through the three-day Christmas holiday. A striking pivotal figure in her turquoise Christmas finery, Calbraith is by turns impetuous and flirtatious, gregariously playing out Nora’s perceived role as wife, mother and hostess as she struggles to make sense of her existence. Increasingly edgy and fearful as the enormity of her actions dawns, her Tarantella is danced with a vibrant maniacal desperation.

Pieter Lawman’s Torvald is a fine contrast, his kindly formality masking a deeper passion for his doll wife and there is believable depth to this relationship. Howard Saddler is an imposing Dr Rank, with Heidi Dorschler as Nora’s friend Kristine and Rupert Holliday Evans, an embittered and sinister Krogstad. This absorbing production of Ibsen’s play, with its profound message for today, marks an impressive debut for creative director Manson Jones.