Woman’s-view fails to impress

A Doll’s House, Lowry, Salford

MANY plays that had a devastating effect in their time often prove not quite so important in the present.

Ibsen’s naturalistic, pre-feminist work about a wife breaking free of her emotional and family shackles is the sort of plot that today would form the basis of a short storyline in EastEnders.

So productions twist and adapt it in ways to keep it fresh, and what could be a more basic story for adaptation than a wife rebelling against an unjust — for whatever reason — husband?

Bryony Lavery attempts a “woman’s view” in this 2004 working of a play that is often seen to take the male side of the argument, and the result isn’t entirely successful.

This could be a result of the current Library theatre company production at the Lowry, rather than inherent flaws in the adaptation itself, which seems not to have made many changes to the original.

But when the production toured previously, the work came in at around three hours; currently it runs to 2hr 30min. This might be due to cutting by director Chris Honer or simply that he chooses a more naturalistic pace of argument.

Whatever the reason, the play that has become a watchword for deep and careful consideration of the mental processes of the characters over the decades, seems rather rushed and superficial.

Nora’s (Emma Cunniffe) emotional transformation from “little bird”, kept at home to look after the children, treated by her priggish husband as a child in need of constant supervision — a role she seemingly happily plays — runs at odds with her rapid transformation to full-blown, self-obsessed feminist who walks out on husband and children.

The dissatisfaction Nora must feel has clearly been building for years, and the arrival of the childhood friend and a potential extortionist are merely catalysts by which her dissatisfaction finds its way to the surface — not the 180-degree turnabout it seems to be here.

Emma Cunniffe doesn’t get far under the skin of her character, and Ken Bradshaw as her husband is made very much the villain, laying down the law with little light or shade to make him human.

Supporting characters — Daniel Brocklebank as the dying Dr Rank, Sarah Ball as friend Mrs Linde and Paul Barnhill as extortionist Krogstad — are more convincing, presumably because their characters change little over the course of the story.