Published: May 22 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 22 2009 03:00

Do we need another Doll's House ? You might think that everything has been said about Nora, and the famous slamming door, as she walks out of her empty marriage. But this audacious version brings a new twist to the play. Zinnie Harris's adaptation shifts the action from small-town Norway to Edwardian London and the focus from sexual politics to politics proper. Here Torvald, the banker, becomes Thomas, a rising politician who has profited politically from his predecessor's misdemeanour. It is not just his standing in the community that is at stake; if Nora's fraudulent loan becomes public, it is his position in the cabinet.

It is a move that produces gains and losses. It's a bit obvious, loses the significant ordinariness of the original and sometimes struggles to make plot twists believable. But it also raises the stakes, reinvigorates the arguments in the play and brings out startling contemporary resonances. To an audience depressed by daily news of tawdry expense claims by Britain's politicians, Ibsen's examination of hypocrisy and face-saving rings all too true. Nora's rejection of a bogus relationship is still moving, but here her demand for honesty seems to have an even wider application.

There is an air of precariousness around Kfir Yefet's staging. Anthony Ward's elegant library set is filled with packing cases that are never emptied: these people have not really moved in; nothing here is quite solid. Thomas, oblivious to this, is thrilled with his new importance. Toby Stephens is hugely enjoyable in the role, his chest puffed out like a pigeon on the pull, his moustache bristling with seriousness. Gillian Anderson, by contrast, makes a lovely, subtle Nora: pretty, charming, she still convinces as a woman who has had the guts to save her husband's health. And as the situation unravels, she quietly conveys Nora's evolution. She doesn't move a muscle in the final showdown, but you see the truth about her marriage hit her like cold water.

The production is beautifully acted. Anton Lesser is a fine, watchful Dr Rank, and there are strong performances from Tara Fitzgerald as Nora's worldly-wise friend and Christopher Eccleston as the dubious creditor. It has ungainly moments, then, but this bold new version makes the play's deep concerns about integrity and honesty between people strike home afresh. ****

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Кстати, ту карикатуру с "фиолетовым вихрем" сегодня выложили на моём другом форуме, и она имела большой успех!

Nor is it immediately obvious why the job of the patronising patriarch who Ibsen's heroine leaves has been changed from banker to politician. Both professions are equally despised these days.

But arriving, as Kfir Yefet's starry and atmospheric production does, at the peak of Britain's biggest ever parliamentary scandal (members of parliament have almost to a man and woman been found milking their expenses at the expense of the taxpayer) there are lines of dialogue here that superbly capture the mood of the current times.

"As politicians, our staple is trust" declares a strutting Thomas - Harris's English version of Ibsen's Torvald - at which point the Donmar audience let out a collective snort of derision.

As the newly promoted cabinet minister Thomas, Toby Stephens delivers the line to Gillian Anderson's Nora with all the swaggering self-importance of a man convinced of his own omnipotence - and a little more to boot.

Anthony Ward's design suggests a newly-occupied government residence by setting the action before a wall of towering, unfilled bookshelves, in front of which Anderson's demure Nora busily swishes about in long silky dresses while being wifey and fragrant.

Fragrant is the term once famously used by a British judge to describe the long-suffering wife of yet another real-life disgraced politician (this one was convicted of perjury), and this Nora is every inch the decorous companion.

Anderson still has star status from her days in The X-Files. But her career on the London stage has been more solid than sensational. In the West End she played opposite Roger Allam's ex-lover in Michael Weller's hotel-set romance What the Night is For. At the Royal Court she was the psychologically brittle artist in Rebecca Gilman's The Sweetest Swing in Baseball.

Both plays were set in the comfort zone of modern America. This time Anderson proves her mettle with a very English Nora whose accent shows no trace of the American twang which this Chicago-born, though London-raised actress is much more used to delivering.

Thomas treats Anderson's slightly flushed and breathless Nora, like a recalcitrant niece. Demure she may be, but she is alluring too. Compared to the excellent Tara Fitzgerald's austere friend Mrs Lyle, there is a sense of repressed sexuality about Nora that explains much, including what excites Anton Lesser's outwardly cuddly but inwardly hard Dr Rank.

But the real sexual charge here is not generated between Nora and her husband, but the vengeful and blackmailing disgraced politician Kelman played by a terrificly fevered Christopher Eccleston. The scene during which he threatens Nora with ruin has a torrid edge. And tellingly, theirs is the only relationship without deception.

My one reservation about this rewarding evening is that Anderson's flushed, breathless Nora shows little sign of a suppressed intelligence to go with her sexuality. It makes the climactic change from submissive wife to rebellious female hard to credit. Unlike, say the distance travelled by Stephens's Thomas, the best of this production's performances.
In the first act Stephens portrays a man whose gentle brand of chauvinism would not be out of place today, and in the third a man whose moral fibre is revealed as having no spine to attach itself to. But then, as Harris shows, that's the thing about politicians.

NonAngel, прости уж мне эту мою слабость
NINA, по поводу твоей идеи, я за, вот только что скажет bgd25??

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Скажи, за что, - и я подумаю

да ладно, шучу. я просто в последней рецензии цветом выделила предожение, где говорится, что игра Тоби - лучшая актерская работа в этой постановке

Это лишь чьё-то субъективное мнение. Ты не виновата

Я-то знаю....

Ну, не всё же мне "загружать"

К тому же я жёлтый цвет люблю. Особенно жёлтые цветы

ох, только сейчас обратила внимание на твою новую аватарку. Так желтые цветы ты всегда любила, или с некоторых пор?

Variety review
A Doll's House
By DAVID BENEDICT

The Donmar production relocates 'A Doll's House' to 1907 England, with Gillian Anderson's Nora married to a politician played by Toby Stephens.
A Donmar Warehouse presentation of a play in two acts by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Zinnie Harris. Directed by Kfir Yefet.

Nora - Gillian Anderson
Thomas - Toby Stephens
Neil Kelman - Christopher Eccleston
Christine Lyle - Tara Fitzgerald
Dr Rank - Anton Lesser
Annie - Maggie Wells
Emmy - Leah Davies/Abby Negus
Ivor - Ted O'Neil/William Nye

Relocating Ibsen's infamous feminist 30 years on, transforming her from Norwegian small-town wife to the spouse of a senior British politician, certainly ups the ante on contemporary parallels. But although Zinnie Harris' new version of "A Doll's House" gains in relevance, it does so at a price. Gillian Anderson brings beautifully calibrated regret to Nora, but the undue emphasis of both translation and Kfir Yefet's production for the Donmar ultimately undo her.

With the British parliament currently mired in a cross-party scandal over politicians' inflated expenses, it's small wonder the first night audience laughed at lines from Nora's husband Thomas (Toby Stephens) like "As politicians, our staple is trust." But the knowing nature of that laughter points up the problem with Harris' approach.

Ironically, Thomas' job itself does too much work. The position of a senior male politician, especially in 1907 when the play is now set, carries a slew of associations -- stuffed-shirt, high status, bombast -- that make the character too immediately knowable.

This means audiences are ahead of the character, an unengaging place to be unless everything is predicated on suspense, which is rarely the case, in this plot. Despite Stephens' best efforts -- his shudder of relief as the specter of blackmail is suddenly lifted is startlingly upsetting -- the role now offers opportunities for illustration rather than engagement in moment-to-moment development. And without a fully rounded husband, the drama suffers.

Although the plot remains intact -- naive wife, released from blackmail over a selflessly undertaken loan, discovers self-respect at the 11th hour -- the shifts in detail and tone further unbalance proceedings.

Ibsen's money-lending Krogstad is now Kelman, a wildly aggrieved politician, himself accused of fraud, who has been supplanted by Thomas. Kicking over a chair and slamming a book against the wall of designer Anthony Ward's handsome oval room, Christopher Eccleston bristles with end-of-his-tether desperation. But his D.H. Lawrence manner and language ("I'd still have your husband by the testicles") seem too modern and wildly unlikely for a successful politician.

Helmer Yefet is clearly intent upon delineating everyone's defining characteristics. But underlining can lead to undermining. Eccleston's rage is so fully stated -- again, too little for audiences to discover -- that his transition to grateful lover of Tara Fitzgerald's nicely pinched but similarly blunt Christine feels implausible.

Anderson's Nora is the most complete performance. From a light, almost coquettish start, this patient, petite woman in upswept curls appears to grow in stature as her dilemma deepens.

Her body is thrillingly alert to her moods, caught and bent by painful degrees of sadness or diving into pragmatism when seized by a decision. By the time Thomas talks smugly about the dangers of exposing children to parental lies, Anderson appears hollowed out by fear. The actress is smartly placed on the opposite edge of the stage from her sanctimonious husband, and her eyes fill with tears.
That moment is so affecting because of its understatement. Too often elsewhere in the production, emotions run too high, too soon. More than a century after it was written, Nora's final decision still remains genuinely iconic. It has the potential to pack a real punch, but this production's earlier overstatement of themes and ideas rob it of surprise and passion.

Sets and costumes, Anthony Ward; lighting, Hugh Vanstone; original music and sound, Tim Phillips; production stage manager, Kristi Warwick. Opened, reviewed May 19, 2009. Running time: 2 HOURS, 15 MIN

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Высоцкий вспомнился: "... а мне вот это, жёлтое, в тарелке..."

Всегда, а теперь - тем более. Кстати, есть одна старая фотография Джилл, и там она тоже с подсолнухами:

http://i082.radikal.ru/0905/21/2bb379a7f2a0.jpg

Всё, жёлтый - мой любимый цвет!

подсолнухи - это все же экзотично, но мне герберы нравятся, как раз желто-оранжевых оттенков

я сейчас подсмотрела, NonAngel, у тебя с моей дочкой день рождения почти в один день, она тоже водолей, может это как-то связано с любовью к желтому цвету? ))))

Просто у меня с жёлтыми цветами связаны хорошие воспоминания

А ещё, maJulie, у меня к твоему имени с некоторых пор особенное отношение. Но это разговор не по теме.

А вот это - по теме. Оперативный народ, уже и коллажик сделали:

Красотища!

Вот новая фотография. Тоби, к сожалению, не в фокусе Но зато какая Нора!

Да, платье очень красивое.

Да, и не "вихрь", и не голубое, как на фотографии с детьми. Интересно, что это за сцена?

Не думаю. Очень уж качественные.

maJulie, по поводу твоего имени я написала в разделе "Это интересно". Надеюсь, ты не обидишься?

Вот ещё сканы статей, если некоторые уже были, - извините Увидеть их всё равно приятно