‘A Doll’s House’ at the Almeida: Ibsen adaptation is no child’s play

The last time I reviewed a show at the Almeida, I was described by one patron as a community theatre hating ‘grouch’ who should ‘go and see some Ibsen instead’. Never one to dismiss audience feedback, I now found myself back in North London to see an adaptation of ‘A Doll’s House’… by Henrik Ibsen.  

Anya Reiss’ version takes the setting to the recently purchased home of Torvald Helmer (Tom Mothersdale), an asset manager on the brink of a huge company sale which will make him copiously rich. As far as his wife Nora (Romola Garai) is concerned, it’s a done deal. She wastes no time in using his credit card to fill the bare house with every manner of Christmas clutter. It’s an absurd image: a minimalist white space with nothing but a fridge, a washing machine and an enormous skylight is now swarmed with bags from Lego and Waitrose. Nora accuses Torvald of wanting a Christmas with nothing but ‘candlelight and a tangerine’,but it is already abundantly clear that her flippancy will come back to bite her.  

Up until the interval, Nora does not leave the stage once. It is her prison. Whilst the rest of the rolling cast of desperate characters–including her controlling husband– bring their dire situations in and out of the action, Nora’s is here before us, always, inescapable.   

The last couple of years alone have seen a surge of modernised Ibsen adaptations; Hedda Gabler, The Lady from the Sea, The Master Builder and now A Doll’s House have all been revamped. So what is it Ibsen has to say that can be so widely applied to contemporary society? And why are the direct translations we already have not satisfying enough? One reason for this second quandary could be Ibsen’s insistence on naturalism. We may be tempted to say that the rigid structures of 19th century Europe no longer apply to our polarised society. And yet I think the Almeida’s take would have been quite agreeable to Ibsen. It offers afrighteningly familiar depiction of Nora’s sheer desperation to tell her husband a truth that would ruin them both, and for her to then leave him once and for all. Whether the great Norwegian writer could have conceived of a love triangle lapdance to the blare of TikTok song ‘looking for a man in finance’ though, I’m not so sure.  

Rarely has this reviewer felt such a nauseated reaction to a scene as when this plays out. It seems to destroy everything the production has worked for up to this point. The raw helplessness, the silent intensity; all gone. The lapdance scene is cringe, it’s vile, it’s not theatre! And I think director Joe Hill-Gibbins intends it. For this production to work– and for us to see inside Nora’s mind– it has to be, at some level, a form of torture.  

 When they look away from their screens, they can’t seem to face the world they live in.

The quickfire second act opens with an interaction between Krogstad– a slimy and matter-of-fact crook complicit in Nora’s darkest secret– and Christine– his ex-lover who has come to beg for a job at Torvald’s company. Having played second fiddle to Garai and Mothersdale up until this point, James Corrigan and Thalissa Teixeira offer powerhouse displays as two individuals who seek solace in the only other person as defenceless as they are. After all, isn’t that what we look for in a modern relationship: the person we want by our side when our lives come crashing down before us.   

Reiss’ script ensures that, when Torvald returns to the action, he is an almost farcical figure straight out of the manosphere. This finally offers Nora her exit route. 

The production is not always as profound as it thinks it is when it philosophises on love’s superficialities, but the idea that we as a species are fundamentally false in our apparent compassion and selflessness seems bang on.  

At the bows, the old lady sitting next to me tells me ‘there’s a world underneath the surface and it’s ready to blow’. I fear she may be right. It’s rarely explicitly mentioned but media is an ever-present factor in each character’s anxieties. When they look away from their screens, they can’t seem to face the world they live in.    

Hill-Gibbens asks us: when global catastrophe is so perfectly cultivated and immoral behaviour is so easily forgotten, how long will it be until that becomes ingrained in our sheltered daily lives? Until all our doll’s houses are torn apart and ordinary human interactions become vessels for our growing insanity.       

★★★★