I directed A Doll’s House at the RSC in the early 1980s, in which Stephen Moore created a revelatory Torvald. We used Michael Meyer’s translation with its Edwardian cadences and stacked the audience around the action on four voyeuristic sides. Stephen’s interpretation was a landmark.
He revealed a character who was as trapped as his wife, Nora (a luminescent Cheryl Campbell). He was trapped by the social conventions of his day and trapped by his lack of imagination. He was caught in a crisis of masculinity.
The final moments of the play were heartbreaking; after the famous door slam, he sat at the table, quite, quite lost. It was fitting that both Stephen and Cheryl won best actor Olivier awards that year.
