Ibsen wrote: "Anyone who wishes to understand me fully must know Norway." And anyone who knows Norway knows what it is like to get wet. Not the drenching one gets in a downpour, which can be quite refreshing, but the insidious damp of lowering mists and incessant drizzle - an opaque soaking that blots out the sun for weeks on end.
Harrogate Theatre's revival is bespattered with precisely the right kind of rain. Silvery rivulets course down the windows of the Alvings' drawing room, through which one can see the jagged maw of a gloomy fjord and a cluster of harbour lights glinting wanly in the distance.
The broad sweep of Philip Witcomb's set is a triumph of theatrical perspective and clever plumbing that determines but never dominates the oppressive tension of Hannah Chissick's production. You sense the stuffy isolation of the Alving establishment and the mordant introspection it inspires. And Oswald's pitiful pleading for the sun becomes all the more painful, given that there is clearly no prospect of a break in the clouds.
Andrew Cryer excels in the role of the brain-softened, bohemian Oswald. An accusatory blank canvas reprimands him for his degeneration as an artist; if his syphilitic condition seems a little remote today, we can certainly understand his ravings as a form of seasonal affective disorder.
Anna Hope gives an equally fiery performance as Oswald's forbidden love, Regine, while Helen Weir's Mrs Alving remains basilisk-faced and impassive throughout. Chris Barnes's black-cloaked Pastor Manders stalks around like a giant, gloomy raven, and Frank Ellis's Engstrand is an engaging old reprobate. One question, though - with all this bad weather, how is it possible for the Alvings' orphanage to catch fire?
· Until November 6. Box office: 01423 502116.
