Over three acts the illusion of bourgeois contentment unravels, and the play culminates in a spectacular scene between the couple as Nora's lie is exposed and Torvald first blames, then forgives her – and is finally abandoned as Nora recognises the truth of her situation. But Nora has a secret debt, incurred with good intentions and a forged signature, and with her husband's new power comes the threat of blackmail. Nora and Torvald Helmer believe they are happily married and on the brink of a blissful new phase of life: Torvald has been promoted to bank manager and their money worries are over.
The play, hugely controversial when first published and performed in Copenhagen in 1879, is about the unravelling of a family. Someone said to me the other night, 'That's the play that broke my parents' marriage up.' It shines a very harsh light on the messy heart of relationships, and how difficult it can be to be honest with another human being even if you love them." These are universal anxieties, and it seems from talking to people that it resonates in the most visceral way, especially if they are or have been in a difficult relationship. You try to keep it in its box of 19th-century Scandinavia, but the things Ibsen writes mean it ceases to be about a particular milieu and becomes about marriage (or partnership) and money. "There is something timeless about it," Morahan says, "which is what's so shocking. In fact, Morahan, speaking to me just before Thursday's dress rehearsal, says she feels "liberated" to be occupying the role again, while director Carrie Cracknell says that even the last few days of rehearsals have thrown up new insights into Ibsen's endlessly complex characters. But the combination of the play's brisk and thriller-like plotting, and the sense shared by everyone involved that the play still speaks to audiences in ways that feel fresh and interesting, means there is no fear of overkill.
Morahan has already won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for her performance and was unlucky to miss out to Helen Mirren at the Oliviers. Three such high-profile productions in the space of a few months is unusual. Moreover, two other, brand new productions have been seen in recent months: in May an adaptation by Bryony Lavery received rave reviews at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and in April Zinnie Harris's version, set in Edwardian London and first seen at the Donmar Warehouse in London with Gillian Anderson in the lead role, was staged by the National Theatre of Scotland in Edinburgh. Morahan first starred as Nora, the 1870s Norwegian wife and mother who realises her life is a sham, at the Young Vic last July, but such is the production's popularity that this is its second revival.
W hen, next Wednesday evening, Hattie Morahan picks up an armful of Christmas shopping and steps on stage to open a run of Ibsen's A Doll's House, it will be for the third time in just over a year.
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