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| A Doll's House |
IBSEN'S great play A Doll's House should be required viewing for anyone who thinks the position of women in society has not moved on sufficiently since it was written.
The treatment of Nora, the "Little Squirrel" wife of the pompous banker Torvald Helmer, is still shocking more than a century after it was first performed.
And it is to the credit of the Company of Ten, which is putting on A Doll's House in the Abbey Theatre Studio, that director Norma Jenkins and her actors manage to imbue the production with such a strong sense of the dramatic even though the story is so well known.
A Doll's House caused a huge furore when it was first produced because it swept aside the notion of the little woman at home with nothing more to occupy her than keeping her husband happy.
The way in which Nora eventually finds the strength to stand up to her domineering husband and strike out for the sake of her own self-worth is the stuff of theatrical legend.
The Company of Ten has done the play proud and has quite rightly chosen to put it on in the Studio. The audience surrounds the action on four sides and is drawn into both the sterility of Nora's life and her amazing strength in deciding to strike out on her own.
The play is not for those with a limited attention span. It has a first half which runs for the best part of one-and-a-half-hours but at no time did it feel too long or lose the audience.
Lisa White, in the pivotal role of Nora, is a total revelation. She gives a stunning performance as a woman who is at first happy to play the frivolous self-obsessed wife until she realises that she has to find herself to survive.
She manages every aspect of the role perfectly and even when she is just standing listening as Torvald tries to dictate the life she will have to lead because of the perceived shame she has brought on the family by borrowing money to save her husband's life, every eye is drawn to her stillness.
Russell Vincent plays Torvald as an unattractive man who is totally obsessed with how people see him and his family. Everything is appearances to him and Nora is no more than his possession.
His hectoring and ranting at the woman whose only crime is to love him too much is dramatically compelling as is the contrast with the tears into which he collapses as the play ends.
Dennis O'Connell Baker as Dr Rank and Jo Emery as Christine Linde give good performances in the main supporting roles but it is Dewi Williams as the lawyer Nils Krogstad who really shines.
His performance as a man in despair who resorts to blackmail is the catalyst of the play and has been placed in a very safe pair of hands.
A Doll's House runs until Saturday 21 October and any remaining tickets can be obtained from the box office on 01727 857861.
MADELEINE BURTON
© Herts Advertiser 2006. Reproduced by permission