I swear: Griffin & Malthouse’s Ugly Mugs

There is nowhere to hide on the stage of Griffin’s Stables theatre, just as there is nowhere to really hide in the two banks of seats on either side of the diamond-stage. Like hands holding a shard of glass or a jewel, we are drawn into the story and world of the play whether we like it or not and you cannot help but be moved by it. Here, the stage is stripped back to its barest elements – bare black walls, rough asphalt floor – and is offset by a white plastic chair, nothing more or less, save for a metal trolley. It is brutal and unflinching, just like the play itself, and doesn’t apologise.

Miracles don’t happen everyday: Sport for Jove’s A Doll’s House

Ibsen’s work is going through a bit of a renaissance in Australia at the moment. To be more accurate, specifically A Doll’s House. Presented here by Sport for Jove at the Seymour Centre’s Reginald theatre, A Doll’s House will also be seen at La Boite in Brisbane in September (in a new version by Lally Katz), as well as in Nora, a ‘sequel’ of sorts, at Belvoir in August, written by Kit Brookman & Anne-Louise Sarks.

In Sport for Jove’s production, director Adam Cook has stressed the period setting and location of Ibsen’s text as being crucial to the play’s success and impact. “We read or watch this play and think, well, here is a recognisable character, a recognisable woman… There’s a richer dialogue to be had with our own times if you set the play in its original period, prompting us to wonder if we really treat each other any differently today, have we evolved in our thinking at all?” It’s an important question, though (unfortunately) I don’t think Cook’s production comes close to answering it.