A Doll's House: Northern Stage (Oxford Playhouse)

The 1950s setting worked surprisingly well in this production. Far from being some long lost Golden Age, it was a period of repression and that aspect is caught perfectly. Torvald might be all babytalk on the surface but there are enough flashes of the tyrant lurking beneath the surface. He has very clear ideas about what Nora should and shouldn't be doing. Nora meanwhile progresses, perhaps a little too quickly, from a thoroughly irritating flibbertigibbert to a woman with a steely determination to discover just who she is. The glass box that doubled as the entrancehall leading onto Torvald's study made good use of the stage space and served as a reminder that Nora is constantly on display, even when inside the confines of the house. The sheer hypocrisy of men is also laid bare. Nora's actions were solely to save the life of her husband and spare her ailing father any worries, but all Torvald can see is *his* imminent disgrace. The minute Krogstad (unexpectedly finding love himself) rescinds his threats, Torvald reverts to his old ways, as if nothing had happened. Nora, however, has finally seen what he is truly like and how little her own thoughts and feelings count in this male world. Her exit is thrillingly empowering.