IT’S ALL THE RAJ! IBSEN’S MARITAL SHOCKER HAS MOVED TO INDIA

A Doll’s House (Lyric, Hammersmith) Verdict: Ibsen all mixed up with colonialism ★★★✩✩

IBSEN’S play, a doll’s House, was shocking at its launch in 1879 Copenhagen and is still shocking. It doesn’t threaten the social order any more but it demonstrates brutally how quickly a marriage can collapse, and the fragility of our closest relationships. That’s scary.

does that emotional charge have more force when you add colonialism to the mix? In this production, directed by rachel o’riordan, the play happens in Calcutta, still in 1879. as Tanika Gupta, who wrote the new adaptation, says: ‘ It opens the door to exploring additional power dynamics — what happens to the women of India married to englishmen?’ The Indian context emphasises the extent to which the marriage of Helmer and niru (formerly nora) is skewed in his favour. elliot Cowan, as Helmer, towers over tiny anjana Vasan, making all his endearments about ‘ my Indian sparrow’ seem apposite rather than yuck. He adores his young Indian bride, his plaything who has, unknown to him, committed forgery with excellent intentions. She almost flutters round the stage, coquettish, with huge eyes.

But to an embittered blackmailer, her former creditor Kaushik das, played by assad Zaman, she is a traitor to her nation and religion.

Identifying her conversion to Christianity as a betrayal adds a new dimension to the play, which has enough emotional baggage already. niru is not just her husband’s plaything — she has sold out to the occupier, too.

actually, the lyrical Indian diction and rapid speech of the Indian actresses is the big problem here. The lady next to me said: ‘I’ve a hearing aid and I can hear the men but not the women.’ Better projection, better articulation, please!