There are two great, wintry exits in western theatre: Antigonus's in the Winter's Tale, pursued by a bear, and Nora's in the Doll's House, with the patriarchal values of bourgeois 19th-century society whistling into the void around her.
It's a cold, severe drama, and Matthew Lloyd's production is chillier than most. Peter McKintosh's set has the grey look of a frozen backwater and the Helmers are shown to be emotionally circumscribed social strivers who surround themselves with comfortless appointments and dress to match the furniture. To emphasise the point, Lloyd concludes the production with a stark tableau of Torvald abandoned in his loveless drawing room with Nora enveloped in a howling blizzard outside.
Over-conceptualisation aside, Lloyd's production has a heartwarming display of truly exceptional acting. Every detail has the heft and complexity of a 19th-century novel: John Lightbody's uptight Torvald seems misguided rather than malicious, Paul Goodwin's Dr Rank is attuned to the maudlin irony of a physician who cannot heal himself; and Michael Matus excels as the oily underdog Krogstad, a mean specimen of a man who appears to be basted in his own desperation.
Yet these stiff, unyielding figures are but skittles to be flattened by the wreckingball of Tanya Moodie's Nora. Moodie charts an astonishing progression from simpering flightiness to free-willed ferocity: if she begins the evening twittering like a caged canary, she concludes it circling like a hungry eagle.
The point at which she snaps is a matter of degree, but the moment seems to come when she begins to prepare for the fancy dress ball and Torvald bids her run along and practise her tambourine. She responds with such vehemence that it's a wonder she doesn't puncture the instrument's skin. Or punch her husband's lights out while she's at it.
· Until March 19. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
