Another Dolls House?

Do we need another Doll’s House? You might think that everything has been said about Nora, and the famous slamming door, as she walks out of her empty marriage. But the Donmar’s audacious version brings a new twist to the play. Zinnie Harris’s adaptation shifts the action from small-town Norway to Edwardian London and the focus from sexual politics to politics proper. Here Torvald, the banker, becomes Thomas, a rising politician who has profited politically from his predecessor’s misdemeanour. It is not just his standing in the community that is at stake; if Nora’s fraudulent loan becomes public, it is his position in the cabinet.
Toby Stephens and Gillian AndersonIt is a move that produces gains and losses. It’s a bit obvious, loses the significant ordinariness of the original and sometimes struggles to make plot twists believable. But it also raises the stakes, reinvigorates the arguments in the play and brings out startling contemporary resonances. To an audience depressed by daily news of tawdry expense claims by Britain’s politicians, Ibsen’s examination of hypocrisy and face-saving rings all too true. Nora’s rejection of a bogus relationship is still moving, but here her demand for honesty seems to have an even wider application.
There is an air of precariousness around Kfir Yefet’s staging. Anthony Ward’s elegant library set is filled with packing cases that are never emptied: these people have not really moved in; nothing here is quite solid. Thomas, oblivious to this, is thrilled with his new importance. Toby Stephens is hugely enjoyable in the role, his chest puffed out like a pigeon on the pull, his moustache bristling with seriousness. Gillian Anderson, by contrast, makes a lovely, subtle Nora: pretty, charming, she still convinces as a woman who has had the guts to save her husband’s health. And as the situation unravels, she quietly conveys Nora’s evolution. She doesn’t move a muscle in the final showdown, but you see the truth about her marriage hit her like cold water.
The production is beautifully acted. Anton Lesser is a fine, watchful Dr Rank, and there are strong performances from Tara Fitzgerald as Nora’s worldly-wise friend and Christopher Eccleston as the dubious creditor. It has ungainly moments, then, but this bold new version makes the play’s deep concerns about integrity and honesty between people strike home afresh