The Republic of Ireland premiere of Frank McGuinness's superb version of the Ibsen classic is welcome and overdue. It is nearly a decade since it played on the West End and Broadway (and five years since the Lyric produced it in Belfast).
McGuinness's elegantly taut phrases reveal Ibsen's ideas, without banging them on the head with the play's continued relevance. The same, however, cannot be said of Laszlo Marton's surprisingly overbearing production, so full of obvious symbolism and thematic underlining that one wonders if he is being ironic. Thomas C Hase's lighting preset includes seven spotlights on toys and dolls in the Helmers' living room. Light permeates the honeycomb walls of Csorsz Khell's admittedly majestic set, indicating the real-world concerns bearing down on Nora and Torvald's tenuously idyllic domesticity. Most of Joan O'Clery's costumes are period-specific, but Hannah Yelland's first act get-up as Nora - wool cardigan, ballet slippers and pixie haircut - makes her look like a Gap Kids ad ... she's a child-woman with a contemporary spirit, geddit?
That Marton has directed at least two other productions of the play in the past four years might provide some explanation as to why the actors, particularly Yelland and Owen McDonnell as Torvald, often seem like they are inhabiting someone else's production. These are committed performances, but strident ones: Yelland overplays Nora's strained hyperactivity, and McDonnell is so unctuous that his recovery of humanity in the last 10 minutes, however impressive, feels incongruous. The most convincing performances are the most low-key: Donna Dent as Kristine and Bosco Hogan as Rank. Marton had great success directing McGuinness' version of The Wild Duck on the Abbey's second stage two years ago. But this production seems trapped between naturalistic and expressionistic impulses, and ends up condescending to its audience.
· Until May 28. Box office: 00353 1 878 7222.
