Nora

Nora

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, 31^st January 2012

In 2008 I went to the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry to see Ingmar Bergman’s play, Scenes from a Marriage, directed by Trevor Nunn.  Marianne and Johan were played by theatrical royalty:  Imogen Stubbs and Iain Glen.  Theirs was a dramatic match made in heaven, unlike the characters they played, where Stubbs’s earthy naturalism was contrasted to powerful effect by Glen’s masterful command of presence.  I must confess here that I am something of an Iain Glen groupie.  It was not by chance that I happened to be in the Belgrade in 2008 watching him perform.  No, I was stalking his performances after his 2006 role in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at Stratford.  Heavily pregnant I watched, mesmerised, by the sense of quiet gravity that he brought to the performance.  Perhaps a little hormonal I wept through most of the play and ordained him then as England’s finest stage talent.

So, imagine my delight when I learned that Glen and Stubbs were to be reunited once again at the Belgrade in another Bergman play; this time an interpretation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House called Nora.  Hastily I booked tickets and eagerly anticipated the event.  But things never go according to plan and so it was that husband and I found ourselves running full pelt towards the Belgrade after somehow managing to leave late and in the general way of things, thus arrive late.  The multi-story car park seemed to go on forever but we could see the welcoming illumination of The Belgrade the whole time.  It is a feature of the largely bomb-flattened city that you can usually see where you are trying to get to without having a clear idea of how to get there.  Still, I digress, now as I did then; to wonder briefly that Coventry is much prettier at night than it is in the day.  Pretty lights on buildings certainly have the desired effect.

So it was that we hurtled into our seats, husband briefly squashing the lady behind’s artificial foot and before we could catch our breath Nora and Torvald were on the stage.  Where were Mr Glen and Ms Stubbs?  Clearly I had made some sort of grave error; who were these nobodies on the stage?  The absence of my favourite luvvies tinged the play with an internal sneer for about twenty-five minutes; until I forgot about what I had hoped to see and started to pay attention to what I was seeing. 

Penny Layden as Nora was almost unbearably irritating and it was only as her character metamorphosis begun to take place that it became apparent that this was the result of a great talent.  She was doll-like to such a beautiful extent that it seemed real.  At one point, Torvald dances around with her and she is stiff in his arms like a real doll.  Nora brought into the twenty-first century was tremendously effective because there really are women like Nora is at the start of the play; who dress like dolls and play dumb to their husbands, even now.  Ibsen, like Shakespeare, could reduce all themes to the nuts and bolts of universality.  Imagine being able to relate so exactly to a female character, not only created some hundred and thirty years previously but also created by a man.  Layden’s Nora is, at times, maniacal but always within the social expectations of woman.  At the end of the play, when her transformation is complete, she walks off stage, case in hand and exits through the audience doors.  With her serious and reflective expression and dark clothes it was remarkable to think that this was the same person who opened the play.  It was as if Ibsen’s Nora walked right out of his 1879 script and into the modern world.

David Michaels played Torvald Helmer and provided the play with much of its humour.  We are laughing always at him and never with him because for most of the play he does not know what is going on and this makes him foolish.  His final, pathetic descent was displayed when he stripped on stage and simulated sex with Nora who was wearing rather more clothes than him.  Of course, this is an obvious motif for vulnerability and so it was that the audience seemed to sigh in collective relief when Nora threw a blanket over the naked Torvald.  Phew!  It’s nice to be shocked but, as with McKellan’s Lear a few years ago, one’s lasting impression of a play tends to be of nudity sprung upon us.  I can still see the old man’s surprisingly large penis swinging between his legs as he descends further into madness but I could not tell you much else about that particular Lear.  Still, by this point in Nora it has been ensured that nobody will feel any real sympathy for Torvald.  Perhaps Mr Glen opted out when he discovered there was nudity involved....

Bergman’s play differs from the original mostly in that it is paired down.  This seems to me a good thing because it makes it seem more modern.  Ibsen was not a subtle writer and the themes of the play, familiar as they are to us today do not need to be quite so overstated.  The beauty of A Doll’s House is that it is a feminist play that even men can understand.  One of the simplified aspects of the play is that Nora and Torvald’s three children are noticeably absent and only ever referred to.  This is effective because we are spared the discomfort of seeing Nora as a mother and we can focus on her simply as a wife.  A woman’s relationship with her children may never change but clearly there is room for improvement in a marriage such as Nora and Torvald’s.  It also helps with the controversial end scene; always a source of dissatisfaction with audiences is the idea of Nora walking out, not just on home and husband but crucially on her children.  Personally, I find the idea quite tantalising, especially at about eight o’clock in the morning but conventional stereotyping of women has prevented this aspect of the play from being considered acceptable and so in this play, Nora maintains the moral high-ground.

It was a marvellous, thought-provoking performance which was more than worthy of the ticket price and the Belgrade is a cracking theatre.  Its light and open layout stops it from ever feeling provincial and the staff are always friendly and without any sense of self-importance (small dig intended at some of the ushers at the RST).  And what’s more, if you want to really push the boat out, go hell for leather, or any other cliché you might care to mention and buy the best, most expensive tickets; you will be out of pocket to the tune of £13.50!  A bit more than going to see a 3D film at a fancy cinema.  And what you get is as fine as anything that you might see on the London or Stratford stage.