This play is absurd, and the actors directors and audience are allowed to wallow happily in all that absurdity, to engage with it, and ultimately enjoy it.

Ionesco’s famous play, both ridiculous and rewarding, creates a unique mélange of the downright bizarre and the overtly intellectual; whether you are there to giggle at two smartly dressed English couples hurling nonsensical statements at one another, or to be presented with Wittgenstein’s ideas about the meaning of words and communication, this is the play for you. You can even do both if you like.

The acting is superb all the way through, Fiona McKenzi being particularly good as the noxiously saccharine Mrs. Smith, and Alex Midha puts on a wonderful display as her husband (both pictured right). The pair is balanced by Tom Coates and Arabella Milbank as the Martins. Typical English couples immersed in a pointedly atypical world, they all four capture the brutal human tendency to rationalize desperately, while, verging on panic, they acknowledge the steady crumble of reality around themselves.

An especial treat is Julia Effertz as the nurse, Mary. She cuts a sinister figure, utterly grotesque in the prim and proper parlour of the Smiths, terrifying the stereotypical English couples for whom she works. Hearing Mrs. Smith querulously tell Mary, a barely restrained force of nature, to ‘pop along now’, captures much of the combination of absurdity and humour in which this play excels.

Undercurrents of hatred and sexual violence run through the play, supporting and emphasizing the main themes. Each character is a slave not only to the social constraints in which they are enmeshed, but also to the raw, primitive needs which those constraints attempt feebly to control. This is brought to the fore most strongly when the elemental figure of Mary is on stage, breaking down the walls between the acceptable and the unacceptable.

The production manages to achieve admirable balance between these two absurdities. Indeed it is a finely balanced play throughout, the cast clearly enjoying the opportunity to dive head first into the rich material Ionesco has supplied, and which ensures a first- rate experience for the audience.

Of course, the audience is still no nearer to finding out just who the bald primadonna is, and exactly why mention of her inspires such shock in the Smiths and the Martins. But that’s all part of the sense of fun, and the threat of fear.

If there’s one thing to be said for Northern Stage, they know the value of good advertising, enticing potential viewers to see their production of “A Doll’s House” by branding the Ibsen classic “an emotional rollercoaster.”

And well they might, considering that at the time of its publication in 1879, the story of a wife deciding whether to leave her husband and children was pretty groundbreaking stuff. It is only once inside the Playhouse, however, that we discover the alleged rollercoaster has suffered some kind of rust infestation causing it to grind to a near-halt, leaving you suspended in mid-air with no immediate means of exit. 

This was not entirely the fault of the production. With a half-empty auditorium, there was a definite lack of enthusiasm emanating from the audience which could not have helped to fire up the actors. While the ensuing sense of apathy might well have nourished Ibsen’s penchant for the truly miserable, when combined with the platter of depressing situations with which he presents us, it allowed the tone to sink to new depths.

Tilly Gaunt nevertheless gave an energetic performance as Nora Helmer, the “doll-wife” of the tale. Through her fluttering mannerisms, voice pitching, and graceful movements, Gaunt successfully brought out the humour of the part and Nora’s child-like quality.

This trait, however, was overblown, and at times undermined the character’s strength: her confession to saving her husband’s life, for example, is delivered in a petulant sulk, and as a result the courage revealed in the process was lost upon the audience. 

John Kirk as her husband, Torwald Helmer and Chris Myles as Krogstad also managed to inject some life into their performances, in the process redefining the concept of “the grumpy old man.” Myles took the more sinister route, spitting his threats at Nora with  lashings of venom and just a hint of Bill Sykes.

Kirk, on the other hand, carried out his patriarchal role with a great deal of angry barking. Although the two were convincing, their temper tantrums could have done with some alleviation, especially in the case of Kirk, who leaves one wondering why Nora ever stuck around so long in the first place. 

The most impressive aspect of the production was the direction. Erica Whyman had clearly taken pains to imprint her own, individual stamp on the play, and made the innovative decision to set the play in the 1950s. This aligns the role of women in this decade with that of Ibsen’s time, and helps to bring out the appearance of domestic tranquility, at least on the surface.

Interesting also was the choice to set the stage within the confines of a glass house which effectively conveyed both Nora’s sense of enclosure, and her ability to see beyond the forces which restrict her.    

Despite these novel directorial decisions, the production as a whole does not merit the description of the programme. However, for all those whose curiosity might have been pricked by such sensational marketing, it was worth surrendering a Thursday evening. 
 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may be dead but Krishna Omkar’s lively production is far from it. As the show begins, the sunlight, which flows downwards into the O’Reilly theatre is blocked off by the lofty shutters and so the viewers are plunged into the gloomy sub-reality of the play.

The black and white setting of the chessboard stage conveys well the powerlessness felt by the main characters, pawns in this game, doomed from the outset by their Shakespearean precursors.

Guildenstern (William Spray) begins to pursue his questions of identity and reality in protracted musings delivered in a dry and lofty yet intense persona. As he builds into his performance, his sharp changes of mood and volume, touching on the aggressive, convey his anxieties and command attention.

Rosencrantz (Liam Wells), while the less troubled of the duo, delivers a more energetic, although controlled performance, bringing life to the stage. The coupling is a success, with genuine engagement between the two actors adding to the overall fluctuating chemistry of the relationship.

Tom Carlisle also shines, in what is a belting performance as ‘the player’, developing an aloof style which he applies with versatility to his changing fortune in the ideological battle between fiction and reality.

It is this tension in the plot which helps make it a success with every character at risk of being fictionalized. The use of Hamlet’s play within a play within this show gives it an extra layer of reference (becoming meta-meta-theatre?).

Clever use of light gives extra meaning: the brilliant white for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s strivings for answers suggests clarity is present in their uncertainty. By contrast, scenes relating to the parent play’s plot are undermined by the dimmer sepia yellow, rendering the familiar uncomfortable.

If the audience watch this show with detatchment, they risk leaving having enjoyed only mild intellectual flattery to the extent they follow Stoppard’s witticisms. Krishna Omkar’s production clinches this aspect: making the audience face each other from opposing blocks, they sit at the fringes of the characters’ perception and are asked to rethink whether they are the spectators or the spectated.

Through this they also share their response, which, promisingly, consists of much laughter and enthusiastic applause, with each other. At the close of the show the audience find the play’s unsettling and surreal gloom has seeped into the night and haunts their homeward steps.

Four stars.