Directors Ellie Keel and Lara McIvor will have a great deal to overcome in order to stage Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in Brasenose College’s New Quad. Not only will they have the ever-present threat of inclement weather hanging over their heads, but to stage a play that is so thoroughly bound up in the idea of the constrictions of social conservatism in an outside venue will require their actors to establish the tone of the piece without the standard physical shorthand of a cramped and enclosed space. This requires real nerve, conviction and commitment to building character above all else.
Thankfully, the cast seems to be well-suited to this task. From the two short excerpts shown at the Brasenose Arts Society, it was perhaps hard to get a real feeling for a couple of the more subtle characters (Mrs Linde and Dr Rank), whose characters require a great deal of exposition before their often obtuse and obscure dialogue becomes more affecting. Others, however, were presented as fully formed and accomplished performances.
Natasha Heliotis’ Nora is an impressively subtle creation. Her confrontation with Krogstad allowed her to demonstrate a haughty imperiousness that perfectly matches the upper-middle class nature of her character. Her disdain for the lowly clerk was perfectly handled and, when caught off guard, she responded with a wounded pride that felt genuinely spontaneous.
Aleks Cvetkovic’s Krogstad is an equally impressive, if nasty, piece of work. He manages to balance a slimy and manipulative demeanour with a morally ambiguous backstory that prevents the character from being a straightforward antagonist. This is villainy at its most domestic, and thus most difficult to portray. Cvetkovic’s art lies in making Krogstad a believable human being, whilst remaining a disturbing and engrossing stage presence.
Peter Huhne’s portrayal of Torvald, Nora’s self-absorbed and possessive husband, is more flawed. He is played as a comic character, gawky and incompetent, with a somewhat strange, stooping posture. Torvald is supposedly the authority figure of the piece, the personification of the social values that keep Nora ‘in her place’; it was a little hard to take him seriously, and even harder to understand how Nora could possibly convince herself that she was happy with this buffoon. But perhaps that is the point. Where Ibsen sought to expose the self-serving nature of social conservatism by mining its darkest and most morally questionable elements, this production seems to strive to achieve the same through mockery and ridicule.
It has to be recognised that it is difficult to deal with such a stone-cold classic with anything less than awe and deference. Although their comic instincts may require to be reined in a little, Keel and McIvor are to be admired for giving Ibsen’s play their own interpretation. Not many other directors (or casts, for that matter) would be up to the task. It seems that, barring thunder, rain and hail, there is little that could prevent this production from being a roaring success.
FOUR STARS
