A Dolls House
This is a complete updating of Ibsen’s classic early feminist creation at the Almeida, and I really wanted to like it. Romola Garai is Nora, who, in this iteration, is married to a financier with a city boy made good vibe, (including the recovery from addiction). He is just about to make it big by selling his company. Nora is an over-excited trophy wife when we first meet her, spending money that as her husband points out, they don’t have yet. But she wants a good family Christmas and so Torvald (Tom Mothersdale) acquiesces. But all is not as it seems. Nora has secretly put them in debt to save her husband and family, but a blackmail plot and a flirtation make everything a lot more complicated. I appreciate the attempt to bring it up to date,and it is ostentatiously of the moment, including the delight of a financier recognising that war will bring in big money for him. The question of how to be a woman in today’s world is still a ...