Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
Nora
\n(Henrik Ibsen\u2019s A Doll\u2019s House)
\nSchaubuhne am Lehniner Plaz, Berlin
\nHer Majesty\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide
\nMarch 11. Tickets $85 – $20. Bookings BASS 131 246
\nUntil March 17.<\/p>\n
It has been said that when Nora Helmer slams the door behind her in the final scene of Ibsen\u2019s A Doll\u2019s House, its echo could be heard for the rest of the nineteenth century. Thomas Ostermeier\u2019s inventive and incisive re-staging for Berlin\u2019s Schaubuhne company is proof that the play still resonates strongly more than 125 years later. <\/p>\n
Unlike the usual stagings of Ibsen\u2019s work in period style, Jan Pappelbaum\u2019s design has Nora set in a Berlin unit, reminding us, with its contemporary trappings \u2013 as Ibsen did to his own audience – that we are looking at ourselves.
\nImmediately, the characters lose their 19th century fustiness and take on unexpected familiarity. Torvald is an overworked bank exec, Krogstad, a middle management casualty, Kristine Linde is no longer a spinster, just unattached, and Rank, is young, debauched and wretched. Nora, too, is recognizable – as the trophy wife who is majoring in shopping.<\/p>\n
There is so much to relish in this splendid production. The multilevelled set, dominated by a huge aquarium, is bathed in Erich Schneider\u2019s luxurious lighting as the actors perform with cinematic understatement, the surtitles actually rescuing them from an obligation to over-project. But this apparently seamless naturalism is periodically ruptured by Ostermeier\u2019s hypermanic bursts of strobe und punk. They don\u2019t always work, but the frenetic light-sabre dance that replaces Nora \u2018s tarantella and ends with her dunked in the fish tank, has, like the grim slapstick of the drunk and dying Rank, a desperation and melancholy that is heart-breaking.<\/p>\n
The performances are remarkable \u2013 Jorg Hartmann\u2019s Torvald is both bland and all-controlling, Kay Bartholomaus Schulze shows Krogstad the troll and the abject penitent, while Lars Eidinger\u2019s Rank, complete with costume angel wings, is a study in futile regret. Anne Tismer\u2019s Nora moves from penthouse pet to unfolding panic \u2013 with nothing to bargain with but her own body, she is disintegrating before our eyes, a desperate housewife for our time, every bit as much as Ibsen\u2019s. <\/p>\n
Ostermeier raises the stakes with his new ending for the play but I am not sure that it is necessary. Having so brilliantly revealed the deep truths behind the life-lies in Ibsen\u2019s text, he shows us that even though a woman can now sign her own chequebook, it is not an end to the matter. Nora here, just as in 1879, leaves everything behind – husband, child, sanctioned identity. In this production, for the first time, we see her on the other side of that infamous door \u2013 and she sure isn\u2019t whistling Dixie.<\/p>\n
\u201cDesperate housewife transcends the ages\u201d
\nThe Australian, March 13, 2006, p.16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Murray Bramwell Nora (Henrik Ibsen\u2019s A Doll\u2019s House) Schaubuhne am Lehniner Plaz, Berlin Her Majesty\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide March 11. Tickets $85 – $20. Bookings BASS 131 246 Until March 17. It has been said that when Nora Helmer slams the door behind her in the final scene of Ibsen\u2019s A Doll\u2019s House, its echo could be heard for the rest of the nineteenth century. Thomas Ostermeier\u2019s inventive and incisive re-staging for Berlin\u2019s Schaubuhne company is proof that the play still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}