Ibsen’s work has been getting a bit of an
airing in Sydney in the past eight weeks: first, Hedda
Gabler at Belvoir, then Sport for Jove’s A
Doll’s House at the Seymour Centre, and now Nora, a
sequel of sorts to A Doll’s House,
also at Belvoir. Not helped by inevitable comparisons between it and Adena Jacobs’ Hedda Gabler which immediately preceded
it in the same space, Nora – written
by Kit Brookman and Anne-Louise Sarks – is the story of Ibsen’s eponymous
character after she leaves the doll’s house and ventures forth of her own
accord.
Set on a blank black stage with the rooms
and walls of the Helmer’s house made from wooden frames criss-crossing it like
a modern flat-pack labyrinth, we first see Torvald sitting at the kitchen table
reading the paper, while Nora reads stories in their children’s room. Lit in
pools of bright and golden light, there is a darkness and a shadowyness to the
rest of house, a suffocating claustrophobia which harkens back to Ibsen’s play,
and it seems that this time around, following Hedda Gabler at least, there is to be more Ibsen and more of a
sense of restriction.
