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A Dolls House
- Tour.
First performed 21 December 1879 at the Royal Theatre Copenhagen Denmark.
This Version was developed by the director and the company of Theatre
Babel.
Playwright - A .
Director - Peter McAllister .
Designer - Graham McLaren.
Lighting Designer - Kai Fischer .
Company - Theatre Babel Company Their Website.
Cast - here .
Seen to review at Perth Theatre on 20 March (performs at that theatre
till 27 March then tours
2003 Tour Dates and Times - here .
Run Time - 1 hours 40 mins no Interval .
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Power in the play, production and questions.
A Doll's House - Theatre Babel Production.
Mrs Linde - Pauline Knowles and Nora - Rebecca Rodgers
© Douglas McBride 2004
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Director Peter McAllister's production has a strongly romantic look with
its cherry red hues suggesting a mature settled love of over a century
ago. But the uncomfortable core sears in this play where we see the dangerous
effects of belief on human emotions.
Torvald, is on the brink of becoming manager of the town's bank, his wife
Nora is celebrating by getting ready a very special Christmas for her
husband and children in set of chocolate box design by Graham McLaren.
Stephen Hogan's highly likeable Torvald gently chides his wife,
his songbird. His world view is one many of us think we share, where when
something is illegal then whatever the circumstances the perpetrator will
be punished.
Nora, living in a time when a wife was not often seen as an entity on
their own, flutters around like an irritating bird got for its beauty
but whose song has too few notes. Rebecca Rodgers' performance
is striking in its complexity and journey. At the moment when she dances
with increasing frenzy round Torvald and their frequent visitor Dr Rank,
her febrile despair and her years of deceit chills with sickening understanding
that what is right and good is never clear. Peter D'Souza's elegant
Dr Rank hints less at a long term sensual longing of Nora rather suggesting
how he has come to be a substitute fatherly companion to Nora.
Visiting Nora for the first time after many year is the widow Mrs Linde,
now having to work to live though she married to be secure. Like Nora
she did something in line with the belief, "above all family",
but she damaged less herself than Krogstad the man she did love in a beautifully
restrained delivery by Pauline Knowles. The older and embittered
Krogstad is the conniving bank clerk who uncovers Nora's loving but illegal
action, Stephen Clyde gives just the right hint of the man he could
have been if different choices had been made.
Theatre Babel have made their own version of Ibsen's play so it takes
under and hour and three quarter to perform. The striped down approach
is very focused on the onward rush as Nora realest her life as a songbird
is no longer viable. The result is you barely miss the interval or what
is stripped out, and the honed lines hit home more clearly underlined
by the lighting by Kia Fischer picking out the actors in warm or stark
tones. Nearly all the time the actors who are not in a scene sit still
dimly lit at the back, mute witnesses to the unfolding tragedy.
Today with its themes of different belief systems and corrosive scorching
effects of debt Ibsen's A Doll's House reflects still ourselves back to
us, it's a slightly altered reflection from that Ibsen's audience will
have seen back then. When Ibsen wrote the play the contrasting belief
systems did largely divided on sex lines, indeed he himself said "A
woman can not be herself in modern society. ..... with laws made by men
and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine
standpoint".
After more than a century's changes women have far more economic and movement
autonomy in the first world at least but the tension remains - are there
any mitigating circumstances - especially when you do things for love.
I also personally belief the play is not just about how the sexes should
relate in all ways but about nations too, for it was to be 26 years before
Ibsen's Norway (whose flags decorate Nora and Torvald's Christmas tree),
would gain independence from Sweden. Theatre Babel's revisions have left
untouched the power in the play, production and questions it gives rise
to, relevant in modern Scotland, Britain and the world today.
© Thelma Good 20 March 2004. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast: Nora - Rebecca Rodgers, Torvald - Stephen
Hogan, Mrs Linde - Pauline Knowles, Krogstad - Stephen Clyde and Dr Rank
- Peter D'Souza.
2004 Tour Details of Theatre Babel's production
of A Doll's House .
Tour begins
16 March - 27 March at 7.30pm also Sat Mat 2:30pm (not Sun or Mon)
Perth Theatre 01738 621031.
31 March - 3 April at 7.30pm also Sat Mat 2:30pm Southampton
The Nuffield Theatre 023 8067 1771.
15 - 17 April at Taiwan Kai-shek Cultural Center.
21- 24 April at 7.30pm also Sat Mat 2:30pm Glasgow Citizens
Theatre 0141 429 0022.
28 April - 1 May at 28 & 30 April at 7.30pm; 29 April & 1
May at 2.30pm and 8pm Oxford Playhouse 01865 305 305.
Tour ends
Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is
thelma@edinburghguide.com
Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted
for any errors or omissions.
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