Nora Helmer's door-slamming departure from her doll's house is as telling and depressing a rejection of marriage and motherhood as modern drama can hope to offer. It was a slam that reverberated through Victorian drawing rooms and scandalised polite society.
Frank McGuinness' memorable adaptation of this classic play, making its Irish premiere, ensures that the slam has a shifting but continuing validity. His approach is more conversational and less stuffy than previous versions, making it easier for a modern audience to understand why the play caused such a stir when it made its Scandinavian debut 120 years ago.
Central to Town Hall Theatre's latest production, directed by Michael Hunt, is an arresting performance from Ger Ryan as Nora. Best known for her role as Paula Spencer in Roddy Doyle's The Family, Ryan carries off this anti-heroic reading with great skill, driving the production along with relentless energy and enthusiasm. She flits about in the first act as a happy little homemaker, frets in the second at the threat of exposure, and strikes out resolutely in the finale as "the little skylark" eventually breaks free from her cage.
Gerry O'Brien's Torvald is more of an emotional incompetent than a domineering bully, while Brendan Murray and Pauline O'Driscoll are both very credible as the unscrupulous blackmailer and the patronising widow.
Jack Lynch is also highly impressive as the melancholy Dr Rank, giving a glimpse of what life might have been like for Nora in a more caring relationship.
Despite fine individual performances, however, there were times when the dramatic interplay was awkward and hesitant and the first act was so static that it almost ground to a standstill. Alison Nalder's glossy set has the feel of an oversized doll's house, producing long shadows from the actors that seemed to add to the atmosphere of menace and the sense of catastrophe.
