'A Doll's House' review — Romola Garai is a riveting Nora in this powerful modern-day adaptation

Read our review of Ibsen's play A Doll's House, adapted by Anya Reiss, now in performances at the Almeida Theatre to 23 May.

Summary

• Anya Reiss adapts Henrik Ibsen's seminal play A Doll's House
• Joe Hill-Gibbins turns the Almeida Theatre production into a hotbed of tension
• Romola Garai is radiant as the increasingly desperate Nora
• The strong cast also features Tom Mothersdale and Thalissa Teixeira

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll's House is a seminal work of 19th-century theatre, renowned not only for the outrage it sparked after its 1879 debut, but also for its iconic ending, in which Nora Helmer walks out on her family and oppressive domestic life in pursuit of independence. In Anya Reiss’s modern-day adaptation, however, the final, iconic door slam is never heard; instead, the cries of her children render the ending unresolved, leaving her departure hanging in the balance.

It is a reimagining that might have Ibsen turning in his grave, yet it feels like a powerful, conflicting closing image. Beyond this, Reiss keeps A Doll's House largely intact. Indeed, it is remarkable that a play approaching its 150th anniversary continues to feel so resonant. Nora, radiantly portrayed by Romola Garai, is initially entranced by her new rental flat, with its exposed brickwork and a lifestyle funded by her finance-bro husband Torvald’s Amex card. Following the turmoil of the previous year – when Torvald (a smug Tom Mothersdale) was sent on what at first appears to be a Nora-funded stint in rehab in Europe after a cocaine-induced heart attack – she is determined to put on a show of the best family Christmas.

But it is not long before this picture-perfect existence begins to curdle. After Torvald fires his old university friend, Nils (James Corrigan), it emerges that he had, in fact, helped Nora obtain the money for Torvald’s “little holiday” from within the company. Desperate, Nora does everything in her power to make Torvald reverse his firing decision: she wears whatever he chooses for her, agrees to dance in front of strangers, and offers sexual favours in an attempt to gain control.

Although this Nora appears frivolous and self-involved on the surface, her borrowing stems from a desperate desire to save her husband; she tears herself apart for making such a colossal mistake. Still, when Torvald is at last made aware of her deception, he judges her only as having foolishly destroyed everything they’ve got. Garai, riveting, is a Nora who is constantly split in two: maintaining an airy disposition for Torvald, while also scrambling to find ways to keep their life afloat. By the end, her rapid-fire has given way to total disbelief. "I don't think I've understood anything until now," she admits.

Occasionally, Reiss’s script slips into exposition. When Nils first raises Nora’s secrets, he repeatedly asks whether she remembers what happened – and surely, if she were carrying a lie so heavy, it would be at the forefront of her mind. Joe Hill-Gibbins’s production, however, is a hotbed of tension, thick with a sense of the inevitable waiting to erupt. Oddly, though, despite the flat having a functioning doorbell – used by the family at various points – Nils appears to clamber into the home through the audience, without ever having to be let in.

Gone are Ibsen’s detailed household sets; instead designer Hyemi Shin focuses in on world of excess and overspending. At the centre of the Almeida Theatre stage – covered in cushiony white carpet – sit piles of shopping bags from the likes of Hamleys, Liberty, and Waitrose. Nora’s old university friend, Kristine (a brilliant Thalissa Teixeira), arrives in a frantic search for work, while Torvald appears to have no memory of her; she acts as a steady figure of reason throughout. Why can’t people simply tell the truth, she wonders? It’s a question that makes A Doll’s House eternally sting.

A Doll's House is at the Almeida Theatre to 23 May.

Photo credit: A Doll's House (Photos by Marc Brenner)