This is billed as ‘a radical new version of Henrik Ibsen’s play’, so radical that it has three settings 150 years apart and three of each of five characters (children are offstage and the former nanny, maid and porter are dispensed with). I sometimes don’t like versions that steer a long way from the original, but this is very clever and I liked it a lot. Somewhat ironically, my female companion didn’t agree.
It’s played out in three parallel periods – 1918, at the end of the war as women vote for the first time; 1968, when contraception and abortion bring huge societal change, and 2018, when #metoo brings a new wave of feminism to the world. There’s a Nora in each period, the actress doubling up as her friend Christine in another period. The other three characters are husband Thomas (Torvald), Christine’s old flame and Nora’s nemesis Nathan (Nils) and Thomas’ friend Daniel (Rank), three of each. Despite this, I thought it was surprisingly faithful to the original.
The play interweaves the periods, with the story moving forward within them rather than repeating, and it’s deftly done. The deception that Nora has made in order to protect her family comes back to haunt her, Nathan using it to protect himself and his job. Christine’s history with Nathan and Daniel’s illness are both introduced, and every character’s behaviour and attitudes reflect the period, though nothing really changes, which is playwright Stef Smith’s point. I’m not sure she needed the Noras’ summary direct to the audience at the end to underline it, though.
It must be very hard to switch character and period as you turn your body and / or put on a scarf, but Anna Russell-Martin, Natalie Klamar and Amaka Okafor do it seamlessly. The men just have to change period (!), but this too is well handled by Luke Norris as Thomas, Mark Arends as Nathan and Zephryn Taitte as Daniel. Clothes, chairs and doorways are the only signposts of a change in period in Tom Piper’s pleasing impressionistic design, with Lee Curran’s lighting and Michael John McCarthy’s soundscape adding much atmosphere. Elizabeth Freestone’s staging makes the complex structure perfectly lucid.
I admired it for it’s cleverness and skilled execution and felt it was true to the spirit of Ibsen’s original. I’ll be fascinated to see whether others will be with me or my companion!
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