In many ways, Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century drama A Doll’s House translates easily to our fraught age of late-stage capitalism. The world of Anya Reiss’s adaptation is uncomfortably recognisable. Torvald Helmer (Tom Mothersdale) is a London finance bro whose addiction to work is only matched by his addiction to cocaine. His wily wife Nora (the magnetic Romola Garai) is seemingly more preoccupied with her weight and status than with their two children. Everyone obsesses over money but refuses to speak honestly about it. Characters keep tabs on one another via social media. Most of the sex is transactional. And some of the worst people in the world are getting rich off a war in the Middle East.
The play begins in the run-up to Christmas in a rental that Torvald and Nora have just moved into. Hyemi Shin’s sparse set is full of clean lines and mostly empty space (all the better to display their conspicuous consumption). We learn that the family is getting back on track financially after Torvald’s drug habit led to a near fatal heart attack and resourceful Nora was left scrambling to pay for his luxury rehab abroad. Nora is set on the family having a proper holiday this year. So what if in her mind the real meaning of Christmas consists of dropping thousands on high-end gifts and snorting lines of coke in front of the tree with their good friend Petter (Olivier Huband)?
The unexpected appearance of people from her past upends her plans. First is Kristine (Thalissa Teixeira), an old university friend who has fallen on hard times and is hoping Torvald might offer her a job. Less welcome is Nils (James Corrigan), a lawyer at her husband’s company who, we learn, helped Nora pay for Torvald’s pricey rehab by stealing from one of their clients. The crime is about to be discovered, unless Nora can somehow replace the missing funds before Torvald and the authorities find out.
Reiss’s expletive and exposition-heavy script is propulsive, yet still manages to leave most of the characters feeling distinctly undercooked. The climactic confrontation between Torvald and Nora, however, is electric, crackling with fury and long-buried truths, as they both begin to understand who, exactly, they are married to. Ibsen’s original Nora was a feminist hero, whose revelation that she needs to take responsibility for herself, outside of the confines of her marriage, provides the play’s famous final moment as she slams the door shut behind her. In Reiss’s modern update, there’s no redemptive door slam but a far more ambiguous blackout. We’re left unsure just how ready Nora is to abandon her comfortable life for a more nebulous idea of freedom. It’s a less promising end maybe, but it, too, is uncomfortably recognisable.
[Further reading: Does Inter Alia understand the manosphere?]
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